24-hour Prayer Vigil … Hours 4 & 5

We have many candles all around the room, incense in different forms, floor lamps, etc. Only a few candles are lit at the beginning and people are encouraged to make the room their own while : light candles, light incense, flip on a light, turn everything off and sit in the dark.

It’s interesting to see what each person chooses to do. Some leave things as they were when they entered. Some totally transform the room. There is a metaphor of Christ’s kingdom somewhere in there.

Hours 4 & 5 … an interesting study. One lady comes with her eldest daughter — a second-grader. She enters and they both pray. They exit quietly, the mother in tears. Outside the prayer room she meets the husband of the lady who has just entered for hour of prayer. They are even now getting to know each other better … Sundays aren’t a good time for learning more about each other. It’s fun to hear the conversations of people in different stages of life. One an empty-nester, the other with elementary and adolescent parenting years ahead. One a northerner, the other a girl of the south.

There is beautiful in the church. If we would encourage that, what might Christ do in and through and around us?

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
Is there someone in your faith community whose you don’t know?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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24-hour Prayer Vigil … Hours 2 & 3

Here’s a question that some who did not commit to an hour of prayerhave asked (and one I’m continuing to ask myself during this time): Why would we pray for 24 hours straight?

Think about it. Is anyone “watching?” We are essentially cooping ourselves up in the building and focusing on God aren’t we?

Maybe it’s just a matter of a group of people joining in a concerted effort to put our lives at the feet of jesusand see where this unique God will lead us.

Maybe our entire understanding of life in Christ will change. Maybe we will finally see this community, our families, our neighbors, our enemies, and strangers as Jesus sees them. Maybe we will step out of this time of praying into lives of prayer that are partnering with God in mission.

Hour 2 … a scattered and overworked lady comes in a bit late after getting off work much later than anticipated. She braves the thunderous downpour. Her husband (my smiling friend who lost part of his leg last year and is confined to a wheelchair) realizes it’s not the best decision for her to help him into the vehicle in the thunderstorm. He stays home and commits to pray during this time. She stays past the one-hour commitment, letting her will be swept into God’s will.

Hour 3 … a wonderful couple who are grandparents with custody of two young grandchildren leave the two little girls with someone and join together in an hour of prayer. Their lives are hard. They spend their lives for the sake of others. They are now open to Christ’s possibilities.

What will come of these personal stories? What is the purpose of time, resource, even sanity in order to pray for an hour? Again, why are we doing this?

So that God might have his way with us. So that we might be changed into “little Christs” in our world. So that we won’t miss what God is doing and how we can be a part of it.

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
Why do you pray?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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24-hour Prayer Vigil … Hour 1

So the faith community I serve is engaging in a 24-hour which began about 24 minutes ago (6pm on Friday, August 31). My wife is praying for the first hour. I am on a 6-hour stretch of being the “prayer attendant” before spending my hour in prayer.

When I talked about this with our vision ministry team, there was excitement, surprise, wonder. But I could tell they were thinking exactly what I was thinking: “Can we get 24 people to sign up and commit to an hour … and then actually for an hour?”

(By the way: Heather has just reached the 30-minute mark so I think she’ll come through!)

I was delighted. The hours between midnight and 6am were the first to fill up. It’s daunting for many … what do we pray about for an hour?

We produced a guide with some suggestions on what and how to pray for an hour. Here’s a few of the items:

Prepare Yourself–
Begin with a period of silence, acknowledging the presence of the Holy Spirit. You may want to repeat phrases such as: “Lord, thank you for inviting me to be here. Help me to hear what you want me to know about You and what Your purposes are for me.� Calm your spirit and center on God’s love for all people. Still your soul by focusing on a point of reference (cross, candle).

Beginning Thoughts–
“O God, You have declared me perfect in Your eyes: You have always cared for me in my distress; I know You hear me as I call again. Have mercy on me. Hear my prayer.�

I’ll post some more of how it goes and suggestions for prayer (and my personal experience) as it unfolds. Right now, a coastal storm is blowing through. Wonder if that will deter anyone from making their hour of commitment? We have taken the understanding that all prayer is offering our entire selves to the will of God and letting ourselves be aligned with Christ. So, here’s to offering up!

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
Have you ever prayed for an hour straight? What was it like for you?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest

My last post has generated many interesting discussions (of course, those are happening by way of email or phone or IM, since many of you read but usually don’t post comments … no big deal; part of the fun of web 2.0 is that we can communicate however we choose).

I’ve been in discussions with like-minded folks and listened (or read) patiently while someone blasts my “” notions.

Having been an English (and Theatre Arts major) in school the first time around, I thought I’d put to use some of those history-of-the-English-language skills.

RADICAL: etymologically, the word “radical” comes from the Latin (radix) meaning “to the root.” Feel free to check me on this by clicking here. Looking at radical’s synonym visual family yields this:

From this visual it seems that a “radical” is someone who is revolutionary or extremist to the root about something in particular.

Don’t you think the faith, the is to be radical? Shouldn’t we be engaged in life-long transformation to the root of all that we are? Shouldn’t every aspect of human experience be under constant conversion to the very base of all we do? Shouldn’t our core theme be radical ? It seems this is what Jesus often calls for, invites others into. When Jesus says, “Come and see,” accepting that invitation means a life of change … to the root.

So allow me to stir up the hornet’s nest some more …

Here’s another I’ve learned from the church: the world is made up of two kingdoms ().

I learned from the church that we Christians should gather in the “church” building as often as possible so that we might escape the evils of the world, be discipled to be more unlike the world, and be equipped to go out and win the world for Christ.

I don’t find that world-view with Jesus at all. Our ancient spiritual ancestors from the pages of Hebrew scripture displayed a type of dualism. They saw good and evil. Sometimes they saw both good and evil coming from God (try to make that one fit in our postmodern orthopraxy!). They felt “called apart” as a specially chosen people.

But Jesus fulfilled what they were progressively learning: God is dreaming to reconcile all of creation to God’s self!

Grappling with this revelation causes us to stop looking at parts of the world as sacred and parts of the world as … well, the world. All of it is God’s creation. All of it is sacred. All of it is being reconciled.

The question for the church is: Are we engaging with God’s activity in reconciling all of creation? Are we making disciples outside the church walls (into all the “world”)? Do we really believe that God’s grace goes before us and that Christ’s Spirit is already at work everywhere?

What I’ve unlearned about dualism is that Christ-followers should see all of creation as Jesus sees it. This is called . And we see ourselves in this creation as ambassadors of and co-workers with the Messiah … everywhere we go!

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
Do you have a dualistic or messianic view of creation?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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An Un-Truth I Learned From the Church … And What I’ve Un-learned About It

A blogging friend of mine, Monte Asbury, chimed in on what he learned from the church that didn’t ring true. Thus, I’ll divulge what it started me thinking about.

The has taught me that to be the church means to be . Authentic Christ-followers should, indeed, lead irresistible lives. But this is not the idiom of attraction I learned. Apparently, the church is most effective when it attracts not-yet believers to its gatherings. I learned this from Vacation Bible School, Caravans, Bible Quizzing, intramural sports leagues, block parties, fall festivals, harvest celebrations, huge Easter celebrations that require hiring a string section, Easter pageants, revivals, missions weekends, back-to-school parties, special concerts, etc., etc., etc.

The thinking was that the more special the event, the more spectacular the goings on within the church building walls, the more readily not-yet believers would be awed into a pleasing relationship with Jesus.

I learned that a lot of effort goes into these special events. I learned that if we build it, they will come. I learned that Jesus was a great spectacle, a bastion of entertainment, a religious-colored festival. I learned that jesuswas into crowds.

I’ve discovered this is an un-truth.

As I follow the lectionary and read from my family scrapbook (Scripture), I’m convinced that Jesus — and thereby, the gospel — isn’t about an attractional event.

Instead the gospel is about an life.

Jesus did occasionally preach / teach to great crowds. Yet, when he plainly extolled the cost of discipleship, the crowds dwindled. Near the end of his public ministry, he was the focus of crowds once again. Yet, this time they killed him.

Jesus’ most effective ministry happened one-on-one and in small groups. Jesus cared about individuals.

Jesus did not ask the thirsty to come to the great big water fountain at the synagogue. Instead, he went to the well that thirsty people frequented and gave a woman living water.

Jesus didn’t have a big potluck in order to feed people’s bellies while feeding their souls. Instead, he gathered with twelve around a small table and gave them his body and blood.

Jesus didn’t build magnificent buildings and point to them saying, “Here I have built my church.” Instead, he called his disciple with the most leadership potential an adversary, then promised to build a community of hope on his shoulders.

Jesus didn’t teach every Sabbath. Instead, he took his disciples with him through a field on the Sabbath, picked the grain for breakfast, and lived the gospel right in front of them.

How can the church I serve become incarnational? It won’t happen with great programs. Nor will it happen by meeting in the building we mistakenly call “the church” once or twice a week.

But it might happen by remembering that we are now Christ’s body. It might happen by rehearsing what Jesus did. It might happen by sacrificing all our false realities for a gospel that is lived and breathed in our communities.

Redemption begins when un-truths are un-learned. Then our hearts of stone are replaced with living hearts. With so much body-talk in Scripture — and a God who inhabited a body like mine — how can I call myself a Christ-follower if I’m not living a mission of incarnation all the time?

The beauty of this redeeming process is that the very church which taught me the un-truth is the church that shows me how to un-learn it and to live differently. For all the church’s flaws, it’s still the church through which God reconciles the world. I choose to be part of the reconciliation.

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
What’s an un-truth that you’ve learned? And how are you un-learning it?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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