What About These Prayer Partners?
“God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts [Gr: distributions] of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will.” Hebrews 2:4
Prayer partners in the church are now in vogue. Like dandelions, they’ve appeared out of nowhere and it is hard to get rid of them. How do you uproot such do-gooders?
Years ago, I decided to change churches and began attending the new church’s membership class. Since the church, itself, was fairly new, there were a large number of Horshacks there. At the end of each class, we were required to join hands with some 4 or 5 people around us and share our “prayer needs” and pray together. Without exception, this certain red-haired woman found her way into my group and, frankly, she was nuts. The woman was like a hitchhiker from the Starship Enterprise. Each week, as she shared her prayer needs with our little group, the others would get visibly squeamish and secretly whisper, “Lord Jesus come quickly.” Not only were her prayer needs totally insane, but her prayers seemed like a mix of Al Sharpton and a Farah Fawcett interview. The end of the 8-week class was sort of like a coming to the Promised Land for us.
Somewhere around 2 or 3 months later, I had my son with me in church and we decided to sit in a different part of the church auditorium. As usual, the music group played a few songs and then the pastor came to the podium and announced that “prayer partners are standing by for anyone who has a need.” From behind, out of nowhere, came Ms. Star Trek. She carried a big, brand new Bible and had her “Prayer Partner” badge prominently displayed. 4 or 5 different people came to her for prayer. I was so taken aback that I found myself praying for people to stay away from her.
In the early church, men like Stephen were recognized for having strong faith and power in the Holy Ghost. Acts tells us that with men like that the “Word prevailed.” In today’s church, it seems that we’ve adopted a Student Council mentality where only the incessant volunteer finds a leadership position in the church. We should do better.