We thank God for you and always mention you in our prayers. Each time we pray, we tell God our Father about your faith and loving work and about your firm hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, CEV)
You may have noticed the past two Sundays that we have resumed praying for several St. Matthew families each week. We are including every family on the membership roster, going alphabetically. We began this the first week of Advent last year, making it all the way through the membership by mid-October. With the beginning of the new liturgical year starting in Advent, we have begun the cycle again.
A few people have expressed surprise that we are doing it again this year. For me, this practice was not simply a Covid-time way of connecting. The greater goal is to form our congregation into being a people who continually pray for one another, not just when someone is sick or having some other problem. Rather, we always pray for each other: in good times, bad times, and the times we are simply making our way through life. We pray in thanksgiving for the people that God has called together in this congregation, for the personalities and gifts that each one brings, along with prayers that God’s presence may be known in the struggles and challenges that each person faces. It is amazing to me how many times over the past year that I have heard from the people being prayed for that week, letting me know that there was in fact something going on that week that made the prayers all the more meaningful. There is, of course, no way to plan for this, and yet somehow the Holy Spirit can work through these ways that we set up to connect to one another.
More personally, one of the practices that I commit to as pastor is to pray for every member of the congregation not just in a general sense, but rather at least once per year to take time to pray specifically for each member. I use these weekly prayers to make sure that I have done that. Before a family is included in the prayers I send a letter letting them know which week they will be included. Before I sign that letter, I pray for each member of that family. When you get your letter, then, please know that it means that I have specifically prayed for you while that letter was in front of me.
In all honesty, left on my own I am not particularly great at keeping up with prayer. It is not something that naturally comes to me. I need these outside structures to keep in going. Perhaps you are someone who is gifted in prayer and do not need to put routines in place. For many people, though, taking time to pray and knowing what to pray for is a struggle. My best advice to that is to have some sort of external deadline or object that makes you take that moment and gives you a focus for your prayer. I have found that for most people it really does make a difference not just in one’s frequency of prayer, but in the ability to notice and care for others in our community.