Now, we’re still working on prayer here, but there’s going to be a segue midway through this entry into a topic that’s been slowly coming to realization in my life of late – evangelism. Now, for the one person that reads these blogs (thanks, Steve!), this is going to stem naturally out of my comment on your blog, but for those of you whom I know just can’t resist reading my blogs 
, here we go.
I’ve titled this post Glorifying God in Prayer, because I’ve still got prayer on the mind a lot. Mostly how to get back to a really solid prayer relationship again. I did have some time for reflection the other day, and it seems that a lot of things have been happening in my spiritual life that I’ve sort of missed because they’ve been happening below the surface. When you start pumping yourself full of praise, worship, and teaching, strange and wonderful things happen. For me, this has been a gradual realization of several things. Firstly, I’ve felt a renewal of the call to reach out to those my own age, a lost generation, that need to come back to Jesus and to his bride, the church. We, all of us, are survivors of the postmodern era, and as such are called to renew the truth of which we speak. This has been a strong pull in my life for several years, but in recent times I’ve gone astray of it. But concurrently with this, I’ve felt a growing sense of being ill-fashioned to do so. I’ve been drawn to older folks all of my life, always seeking out those who profess wisdom and maturity because I just didn’t fit with those who were my own age. They lived in a world I was never comfortable in, but as a result I have a limited sense of how to speak to those hearts, what is relevant and powerful to them, and how to evangelize in that culture, because they are the bearers of the torch. They are the ones to whom the church will pass, and ultimately those to whom God has entrusted the stewardship of his church as the future moves in on us. The Presbyterian denomination, from which I come, I am sad to say seems to be losing in this battle, with congregations composed of either the very old or the very young. What place, then, has a church polarized in this way in a culture of in-betweeners? I could spend quite a time on this, but I think I’ll save it for the next post. Thus, here is the first part of my dilemma. The second proceeds naturally. I have titled this post Glorifying God in Prayer because that’s really where the root of the regeneration of the church lies, for me. Prayer seems to have lost ground as a necessary stand against the hollowing-out of the church, in most of my experiences. It has become inward-seeking, related to ministries of the church and government of the same without reaching out to the Lord of all Creation to speak to His children, to use his church to reach those adrift in our own culture. This inward-seekingness of prayer, although necessary in personal devotion and personal relationship, does not effectively minister to the necessity of outward evangelization in the churches of which I have been a part. I think that the greater difficulties of prayer that I speak of here have begun moving further into the hearts of the congregations, leading them into a slow degradation of what was meant to be a noble and beautiful thing. I’m going to refer you to Matthew 6:5-18 and to Isaiah 58 and Isaiah 61 to remind both you and I of what it means to pray, to fast and to have faith in such disciplines as a necessary and marvellous form of the glory of God. I want to suggest, too, that if we seek after such glorfying of God as Isaiah states, we will become more attuned to the needs and the spiritual emptiness of the generation of which we find ourselves a part. Take a look at the chapters and for God’s sake, pray. Talk to you soon.
