Prayer Movements & Belief II

The ‘emerging church’ and ‘radical discipleship’ movements have their roots in a profound dissatisfaction with establishment Christianity. In rejecting the establishment church, both traditions have tended to throw some babies out with the bathwater. One of these babies is prayer. As one deeply committed to radical discipleship and mission, I think it is imperative to examine what I perceive to be a lack of prayer among us, and what the consequences for our movements will be.

In Part 1 of this short analysis we looked at how our movements’ history has shaped our attitudes towards prayer and briefly outlined some reasons for why we don’t pray. In Part 2, I’ll suggest some consequences for our movements stemming from this lack of prayer and attempt to sketch the real issues that prayer masks.

Prayerless Movements

The primary reason why movements exist is spiritual passion, a consequence of an encounter with God that is nurtured through prayer. When prayer is lacking, this spiritual passion dies. It follows that prayerless movements stop moving. Spiritual passion is  replaced by activism, critique and ideology – all of which have their place within the context of a living faith. However, when these things become primary to a movement, we should dismount, because the horse died long ago. Look at our movements – what is more prevalent? Spiritual passion or relentless activity propped up by intellectualism and critiques of ‘enemies’?

Without prayer, movements turn to other sources for security – the obvious one for Christian movements is the Bible. Instead of allowing the Bible to constantly pose hard questions for our movements, we use the Bible to justify our existence and respective identities. We are perfectly happy for the biblical witness to be a challenge to the mainstream church, but reluctant to allow the contradictions between ‘our way’ and the Bible to be fully explored. For example, how do we in the radical discipleship movement deal with the New Testament’s emphasis on mission? The constant chorus that justice work is mission evades the call to preach the gospel with words as well as deeds. How does the emerging church plan to deal with Jesus’ clear priority for the socio-economically marginalised? Planting churches that give people an alternative experience of worship but sidestep socio-economic issues is a surrender to the same consumerist values that we despise the mainstream church for embracing.

The other consequence of prayerless movements is more serious. Individuals within our movements will not keep on the road of authentic faith. The paths offered by our respective movements are counter-cultural and therefore difficult, and in the absence of spiritual passion, the excitement engendered by being an ‘alternative’ to the ‘mainstream’ will wither away. Where does this leave individuals who have been attracted to our movements? They are prone to helpless capitulation to both establishment Christianity and our consumer culture.

Prayer & Belief

I, like most of us, struggle to pray. But in reality, prayer itself is a side issue. Our obsession with experimenting with new spiritual techniques or ‘alternative worship’ will be unsatisfied if the cause for our spiritual malaise goes unaddressed.

Our lack of prayer is the spotty skin that, when peeled back, reveals the rotten fruit of our faith. In other words, our prayer life is merely a symptom of our faith. For each of the reasons above for not praying, the underlying issue is one of belief. I think this is what we need to work on – belief in God. I am not talking about constructing creeds that we can sign up to and then breathe a sigh of relief. I am talking about deep-set conviction that comes from God. How does that come about? By acknowledging that our activism, our critiques and our ideologies are empty, that we are lost, that we need God desperately.

Such an acknowledgement will not immediately produce any results. But a commitment to simultaneously acknowledging our emptiness and reaching to Jesus for salvation will, I believe, bring forth much fruit. Working for justice with joy, authentic worship independent of liturgical sophistication, sacrifice for others free of resentment. In short, a spiritually healthy and biblically faithful witness to the world.

September 2002