Pray Like You Mean It

Last year I wrote a short post called 'How To Pray.' It was mostly just a link to the audio file and handout from a teaching session I gave at church. This post fills out some of the details and will also appear in the Faith section of the Henderson Daily Dispatch sometime in June.

Pray without ceasing - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Most of us know that we should pray more. Paul's command to "pray without ceasing" usually makes us feel like we fall short. Like dieting or exercise, prayer is a discipline that we too often put off for another day, perhaps when we have more time. But just like an athlete who prepares her body for competition by eating well and training every day, we can only become people of prayer by working at it. Praying all the time takes concentrated effort -- it comes naturally for very few people.

How do we pray more often and more effectively? First, don't be afraid to ask for help. Jesus' own disciples had to ask him how to pray: "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). That's when he introduced them to the Lord's Prayer. There are people around you who are also struggling to be better at prayer. Ask them how they are doing -- when they pray, what they use to guide them, etc. It will encourage and bless the person you ask.

Second, remember that prayer is a response to God's grace. This order of operations is very important. We don't pray so that God will do things that we want. Instead, we pray to thank God for the love that has already been demonstrated for us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. This means that it is not up to us human beings to "come up with" something to pray for. Rather, we are simply responding to God's goodness and mercy by giving thanks. Our petitions and requests are nothing more than responses to needs in the world. Don't pressure yourself to invent beautiful prayers off the top of your head. Praying is just responding to what you have experienced from God and seen in the world.

Third, be honest. Have you ever read through the Psalms? Notice how straightforward the psalmists are about their needs and discouragements. If they feel let down by God, or that the Lord has abandoned them, they are not shy to shout it out! God can handle it when you feel disappointed, ashamed, or let down. Don't feel like you have to clean up your prayers into nice tidy statements. Tell God how you really feel.

Fourth, pray with others. Prayer is not meant to only be a solitary activity. Indeed, it is one of the most important parts of what happens when God's people gather together. If you need help learning how to pray, go to church more often. Go to all the services that your congregation offers, and then attend some others at nearby churches listed in your newspaper. Worship is about prayer, and worshiping more often will help you pray more. If you don't believe that, I challenge you to try it!

Finally, remember that you always have back-up. Romans 8:26 says that the Holy Spirit will pray for you when you don't know what to say. God is not interested in giving you a grade for how well your prayers are structured. Instead, God will actually help you pray when you struggle for words, or even when you lack the faith to pray on your own.

When a Mission Trip is not a Mission Trip

Last week I went on a mission trip. Except that it wasn't really a mission trip. In fact, we didn't accomplish anything. No houses were built; no church buildings were painted. The name of the trip itself indicated that doing something wasn't the purpose of going: Encuentro was about meeting people and hearing their stories related to immigration at the border areas of Mexico and Arizona. If something was changed as a result of our trip, it wasn't because those of us from North Carolina accomplished a specific task.

Short-term mission (STM) trips have been more than trendy for the past 20 years. It's actually de rigueur for young people in many Protestant churches to go on an overseas excursion each summer. Indeed, my own faith journey has benefited greatly from mission trips, beginning with a STM to Paraguay in 1991 led by a group called Go International. It's hard to imagine that I would have become a missionary and a pastor without these cross-cultural experiences to South America, Haiti, and the Solomon Islands.

But when every Christian young person in the US expects to go on a mission trip, these experiences can become more of an industry than a ministry. Several folks have already written on this subject, and you can check out some summaries of those critiques here in Christianity Today and Christian Century. (I think that second article requires a subscription.) As these authors suggest, STM trips can be very effective if they result in meaningful encounters between guest and host -- where listening is the bigger part of doing.

On Encuentro 2015 our team did just that -- we listened as our hosts shared their experiences as migrants. At Casa del Migrante in Tijuana we ate supper at a guest house, along with 50 men who were staying there in transit between the US and Mexico. The ones I spoke with personally had

Men at Casa del Migrante (Photo from migrante.com.mx)

recently been deported from the US and were trying to figure out what to do next. They had grown up north of the border, having moved there with their parents at a young age. Now they found themselves removed from the US because they lacked proper documentation. These men had to find their way in a strange city in a country they don't know, separated from their families. These stories are numerous, especially as the US has increased deportations over the past 10 years. Many ministries and churches have responded to this crisis of dislocated families. We also visited Padre Chava, which houses and feeds migrants, along with a Salvation Army shelter. North of the border we met with workers from Samaritans, BorderLinks, Neighborhood Ministries, and the United Methodist Church. All of these groups help migrants to survive the physical and legal perils of living in the US without documents.

Looking through the fence into the US

It was difficult to hear these stories about deportations, especially when they involved men who where forcibly separated from their wives and children. As a visitor to Mexico, there was nothing I could do to help these families. It would have made me feel better to paint a room or build a church fellowship hall, but it wouldn't have helped. In fact, a STM work team might have taken employment away from some of these migrants who were stuck in Tijuana without a job. All we could do was listen. And worship.

One of the most meaningful things we did on Encuentro was to celebrate Communion at Friendship Park in Tijuana. For a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays the US Border Patrol lets people approach the border wall. That allows people on either side to see their loved ones face to face. In many cases this is the only way these families can visit each other in person. It is very difficult for Mexicans to get papers to come to the US, even as tourists. And many on the US side are stuck in the years-long process of obtaining documents, which prevents them from leaving the country. During our afternoon at Friendship Park, we saw a family reuniting -- that is, looking at each other through a metal barrier -- after 15 years of not seeing each other. It was in that place that we had Communion. Two pastors presided over the service -- one in the US and one in Mexico. The pastor on the northern side preached in two languages and consecrated the elements. Then we on the Mexican side lined up and received them. Although a wall separated the worshipers from each other, we realized that God's grace was not limited by borders and walls created by human governments.

STM trips can be heart-breaking. Encuentro certainly was. I couldn't fix anything in the 6 days I was there. All I could do was listen and pray for the people whom God has called to minister to migrants. In the meantime I can keep praying and celebrating the risen Christ who is in the business of reconciliation and barrier-busting.

Receiving the body and blood of Christ at the border fence

Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

Larry Norman made this question semi-famous with his 1972 song from the album Only Visiting This Planet. As one of the pioneers of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), his tune became an anthem for this growing movement. The formal label

known as CCM would gain traction in later years, but this song described what its forerunners in "Jesus Music" or "Christian Rock" all held in common: a desire to create alternative Christian entertainment by using popular music forms.

Of course it is commonplace now for Christian music to use the same instruments, rhythms, and melodies as secular acts. Nowadays we are actually more likely to find CCM inside the church than outside it. CCM gave birth to CWM (Contemporary Worship Music), and these newer songs are meant to be played in your Sunday morning service -- not in a theater or school gym on Saturday night. Although lots of churches still worship with choirs, organs, and hymnals, hardly anyone bats an eye at seeing guitars and drums in a sanctuary.

Larry Norman's side clearly won the worship wars, but his influence wasn't limited to the American church. There are also connections between the CCM genre and the birth of the missionary movement known as ethnodoxology. Scott Aniol and some colleagues from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recently published an article in the journal Artistic Theologian called "Worship from the Nations." The bulk of the article is an historical overview of the people and organizations that birthed ethnodoxology as a mission strategy. As a participant in this movement myself, I have to say that its account is thorough and comprehensive. But Aniol's article misses this key link: the pioneers of ethnodoxology all came of age in the time of early CCM. It seems pretty clear to me that "Why should the devil have all the good music?" and "Music is not a universal language" are cousins in the family-tree of ideas, if not siblings. I can even remember taking a course from the late Tom Avery with Norman's song title listed as a tenet of this philosophy about music and mission.

The irony is that as CCM has become the status quo for Christian music, it is actually making the work of ethnodoxology more difficult. CCM/CWM is now a behemoth that rides global media channels to overtake many locally-grown forms of expression. Songs from Hillsong and Chris Tomlin are now played in churches of virtually every nation. A small congregation in a regional capital in Indonesia is much more likely to copy one of these songs from Youtube than they are to adapt a "pagan" tribal tune from their ancestors. Ethnodoxologists rarely have to persuade people not to use the "devil's music" from their own societies -- instead they have to make a case for not simply mimicking the tunes from Norman's descendants.

Note for history geeks: Contrary to the common myth, Martin Luther probably never said this phrase. It seems to have originated instead with English evangelist Rowland Hill, who asked, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?"

I will let you listen and decide for yourself: Was Larry Norman's signature song actually taking anything back from the devil -- in other words, is this really "good music"?