When the now-famous Beaconsfield miners were trapped almost a kilometre underground, Australia was asked to pray. Not only by religious leaders or church members, but by mine workers, union officials and even reporters in the media.
When Sophie Delezio suffered life-threatening injuries after being hit by a car for the second time in her young life, her parents asked the public to pray.
And pray we did.
Declining church attendance disguises the fact that Australians continue to be very "religious.' Four out of five Australians believe in a god, and it seems that many of those "believers' are prepared to pray to him or her when called upon by the community or by special circumstances in their own lives.
Even in our alarmingly secular society, prayer is still regarded as acceptable and even natural under difficult circumstances.
Yet, it seems that we, as a church community, find it uncomfortable praying around unbelievers. We feel that prayer will threaten them or confuse them. We think that by drawing them into our own conversation with God that we will muddy the waters of their own theological search for answers.
This attitude was again demonstrated by the reaction of some youth leaders to the Saturday night prayer session at KYCK, the Katoomba Christian Convention for teenagers. According to an article in sydneyanglicans.net (KYCKing prayer up a notch) a youth leader was quoted saying that "given that half our youth group at KYCK are non-Christian, this event succeeded in making them feel completely uncomfortable" "
This attitude is not isolated to youth ministry. Some adult small groups, despite being accustomed to regular prayer, also choose to eliminate prayer from their gatherings on "evangelistic' occasions.
Can you see the irony? The media is calling our nation to prayer, but the Christians stop praying when the pagans arrive!
It is difficult to work out why we have endorsed this practice in our ministries. Perhaps we want to prevent people speaking to God before they know who they are addressing? Perhaps it's because prayer is an emotional activity, and we fear manipulating our visitors? Perhaps we want to help them establish an epistemological base for their belief before we allow them to enter the throne room of God?
Or, have we stopped praying around outsiders because we simply fear that it will scare them off, even though a discussion group about Christianity or a church gathering is the very place they would expect to hear people praying?
It appears that we have tried to deliberately create a "slice of earth' in many of our evangelistic endeavours. We try and remove any relational and emotional aspects, and instead seek to recreate the environment and conduct of a university tutorial class.
Why don't we offer the outsiders a slice of heaven, instead? Why can't they join us as we pray, and sing, and participate in the many dimensions of human emotion? Why can't we woo them to God by showing the wonder of addressing the creator and judge of the universe as "Father'?
There is no greater advertisement for the Christian faith than public prayer. There is no better way to shake the world of a year nine unbelieving teenager than for them to hear their mates talking to God in a way that shows they believe he is real, attentive, and loving. For our work colleagues or family and friends there is no better way to demonstrate our faith in our loving Father than to graciously allow them to overhear our conversations with our Lord and Master.
Jodie McNeill is a Youth Ministry Trainer and Year 13 Director at Youthworks College. Visit his website at [url=http://www.jodiemcneill.com]http://www.jodiemcneill.com[/url]
