When People Say They’ll Pray for You

I am imagining a couple of different scenarios.

In the first scenario, I have poured my heart out to someone. Something worries, troubles, or afflicts me, and I vulnerably divulge those burdens. And the person on the receiving end says, “I’ll pray for you.”  This response is often genuine. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s the easy way out. Truthfully, it is easier to tell me that you will pray for me than it is to walk or talk with me through pain.  Sometimes this response is a way to absolve them of their communal responsibility to respond to my needs, to carry burdens, to be present.

In the second scenario, someone who knows very little about me tells me they will pray for me. This, too, is often genuine (and appreciated). But why does the person feel the need vocalize their intent to pray for me? I think, in this case,the “I’ll pray for you” response may be marshaled as a means to gain greater access to me. Perhaps it is vocalized not to reveal their prayer intentions but their relational intentions. In other words, “I care about you” or “I want to be involved in your life.” So the relational desire is cloaked in spiritual language.

So, what to make of this?

I don’t throw these scenarios out as criticisms. I generally appreciate when people tell me they will pray for me (whether they actually do or not). I contemplate these scenarios because I think there is more to the utterance than what we interpret at face-value. There is more to it than simply revealing one’s prayer intentions. Isn’t it possible that “I’ll pray for you” is actually a rhetorical move to dodge the responsibility of doing the gritty community?  Isn’t it also possible that “I’ll pray for you” is actually a rhetorical move to attempt to foster a greater sense of connectedness?

What Church Should Be Like

For the past two Sundays, I have attended a house church collective held in various homes in Atlanta. After years and years of “churching”, this house church seems a little odd. But odd or not, it is a beautiful experience.

We sing songs from a “hymnal”, which is a collection of folk-y songs printed on artsy paper and bound by keyrings.  Then we pray. Then we read Scripture verses and quotes from other texts. We co-create a sermon through our discussion and dialogue. Then we share Communion. And then we eat a potluck dinner together and hang out.

I really think this is what church is supposed to be like.

Sin is Helping Me

For some Christians, Christianity really gets in the way of them loving people like Jesus did. Sometimes I am that Christian. But I don’t really dig that. And God has been totally transforming me in this area. It’s happening in an odd way though.

Through my own sins, failures, and flaws, I am seeing that I am not that different from those “we” typically relegate to the outskirts of Christian community.

It becomes easier to love, respect, and accept people when you see yourself in them.

Fitting In With Christian Women

I have this friend…she’s in seminary right now and working on planting a church. She’s got an interesting story. Left behind a reckless life of drugs and sex to follow Jesus. She has tattoos all over her arms and crazy, wild hair.  She hangs out with sinners and outcasts. Her heart is huge!  She’s fiery and prophetic and sarcastic and passionate.

I fit in with her. But she is not the average Christian woman.

There’s like a “Cult of Christian Womanhood” (much like The Cult of True Womanhood) .  You know, it’s the meek and mild, soft-spoken women, who homeschool their flock of children and know how to cook and sew and do all things domestic.  They never raise their voices or cuss or listen to secular music. They don’t have tattoos or smoke or stay out late.

I don’t fit in with these women. (Nor do I smoke, for the record.)

I don’t even want children. I may never get married. My domestic skills are limited (but sufficient thus far). I’m a natural agitator, prone to challenging the status quo. I’m gentle but fiesty. I like good beer and the ‘s’ word. I have worship music and rap music on my iPod. I have Bible commentaries and books about Black Power right next to each other on my shelf. I LOVE the Lord, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not like other women who love the Lord.

Here’s the thing…
There is room for ALL of us under the banner of “Christian Women”. The diversity is splendid!  The rebel seminarian, the quiet scholar-protester (me), the delicate stay-at-home mom. All of these types of women are wondrous and have the potential to bring God so much glory!  The problem is the rebel seminarian will be evaluated “not submissive enough”.  And I will be evaluated as “not feminine enough” because I don’t desire children or “too worldly”. And the stay-at-home mom will be evaluated as “too old-fashioned” or worse, “not really working”.  Should not our evaluations center on character instead of vocation?

Wait. None of that was really the point of this blog post. The point is: I don’t feel like I fit in with Christian women…and I may never.  And until we can conceive of many different types of Christian women as normal and acceptable, the burden to bridge the gap will always fall on me, as the one outside of the norms, trying to create and sustain relationships with Christian women who are very different than I am, and in many ways, considered more ideal than I am.

The Public and Private of Walking with God

Photo from fineartamerica.com

My friend was telling me the other day about how she needs to cultivate a prayer life and quiet times with God, etc.  I joked that if we could combine our lives, we’d be really spiritually fit.  We each lack what the other has.  I lack community, accountability, and Christian fellowship.

It’s true that our spiritual lives have two domains: the public and the private.  If you just have the public, your spiritual life can lack revelation, depth, and intimacy with God.  If you just have the private, your spiritual life can lack correction, challenge, and the comfort of the family of God.  I feel like I’m walking around in a raincoat but with no umbrella over me, no spiritual covering.  And she is walking around with an umbrella but no raincoat.  We’re both getting wet.

Construction Workers

It has never been a one-man project.  The building of the temple, I mean.

The Book of Ezra…

The king of Persia issues a decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the altar and the temple.  This Cyrus was not a man of The Holy God of Israel.  (It’s amazing who works in your favor when God engineers your circumstances.) Anyway, these exiles had been taken captive and had their holy place pillaged by that king of Babylon, Nebucha-what’s-his-name.  Now they are going back.  Returning.  Rebuilding.  There was Zerubbabel.  There was Ezra and later Nehemiah. But there  were others.  Thousands of others.

I was struck by how many people the project of rebuilding required.  I mean, hey, this was no weekend side-gig. Round up the jocks from the remnant and throw some stones together.  Quite the contrary.  The exiles settled, they gathered supplies, they planned, they assembled.  This was a long endeavor.  This was a communal endeavor.  Carpenters, masons, musicians…(oh my!)  The dwelling place of the Most High is too grand for two hands.

And yet somehow we ourselves, as temples of the Living God, undertake our building and rebuilding on our own.  Here’s the thing. The book of Ezra is historical. It’s not allegorical.  It’s not metaphorical. But it does provide some powerful imagery concerning the temple.  Do we notice how much manpower the rebuilding of the temple demanded?   May I suggest that building temples is no less communal now than it was then!  I’m not talking about constructing church buildings;  I’m talking about our lives.  All of our talk about “Christian community”…It’s not just about having like-minded friends.  It’s not just about sharing prayer requests over Starbucks lattes.  Why do we need community?  Why is this work communal?  Because the work of a holy place is arduous and requires a multiplicity of skills that no one man possesses. It is not work we can do on our own.

As I examine my life today, I see the lack.  A lack of diligent workers who will convene with unified purpose to help build me, this temple of the Living God.  My prayer today is that God would bring people into my life (and carry me into others’ lives) that will dirty their hands  in the task of rebuilding me as a holy dwelling place for my God.