Rock, Paper, Scissors...Prayer Beats Preaching Every Time!!!

Rock, paper, scissors...y'all know the game.

Rock beats scissors.
         Scissors beat paper.
                  Paper beats rock.


This game has settled a number of issues in my life and the life of certain of my friends and former room mates.

Here's a game you may or may not be familiar with:

Prayer, preaching, and

And Prayer beats Preaching every single time.

Why is it that we ministers (and so many church members) think good preaching is vitally important to a healthy worship service? Sure, it's important to rightly proclaim the Word in worship, but is that the most important thing?

I think not.

A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking with a fellow minister and newfound friend, Bobby Musengwa. Here is a picture of us taken after services last Sunday at Maximo Presbyterian Church, where he pastors and where I had been invited to preach:

A couple of weeks ago, Bobby and I were discussing the importance of prayer in the life of a church and in its worship. Bobby grew up in South Africa. My formative teenage years were spent in a Pentecostal Holiness church. In both our experiences, the prayer life of the churches we grew up in far outweighed the sermons we remembered being preached.

At the church I spent my teen years in, I can only only recall a few sermons that really stick in my mind. It's not that the sermons were so bad, it's that the prayer life of the church in worship remains so vivid in my heart and soul.

Bobby told me of a church his uncle (I think it's his uncle, I really can't recall at this moment) pastors back in South Africa. It's growing in leaps and bounds, and according to Bobby, not due to great preaching but due to great prayer.

Let's quit worrying about prayer in public schools and instead, bring prayer back to it's essential place in worship.

Real prayer, gut wrenching, sweat-wringing prayer, peaceful prayer after the rainstorm passes kind of prayer, not the perfunctory bold face, tame, responsive crap that passes as prayer in so many churches today. Why is it that pastors have to actually WRITE out prayers for elders and laypeople who lead worship, while home churches and micro-churches, who don't even stress professional clergy and laity, need do no such thing? And of course, I am not talking about beginning some kind of obnoxious "Father God Prayer", with all it's flourish and showiness during the service. What the heck is going on these days regarding prayer in worship? I mean, can't we just pray, can't we simply talk with Abba? If we can't, then why even gather? I, for one, would rather stay home than go to church to hear some one recite a prayer some one else wrote, repeat some pithy phrases in boldface, and hear a sermon that may or may not be worth hearing.

OK, I admit it, that last paragraph stepped over the limits and bounds of polite decency and theological acumen. I admit it. I'm sorry. I repent. Those are my words, not Bobby's.

But maybe, just maybe, we preachers need a sign on our desk that reads:

It's about prayer, stupid...


Because prayer beats preaching every time!