Mark Batterson, a pastor and author of Wild Goose Chase, also wrote the best selling In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.
I found this book interesting, full of inspiring stories and insight. However, I disagree wholeheartedly on his take on prayer. Batterson writes, “It’s time to quit praying.”
I don’t know about y’all but I’ve been in a lot, I mean a lot of prayer meetings. A lot of really, really small prayer meetings. When and where is the church praying. The reason we are ineffective in so many ways is because we are not praying. We are not corporately and possibly individually praying.
Churches and people who pray don’t need to be told, “Get out there and do it.” In the atmosphere of prayer, they are inspired, convicted and made bold. Our down town ministry came out of prayer.
Prayer is not inactivity. It’s not “not” doing, it’s the gasoline needed to make every believer and every ministry work. Batterson goes on to detail a story about a woman working with children and survivors of India’s sex trade. While the women is doing a marvelous work and I applaud her, she makes this comment, “Jesus didn’t send His Son to pray for us, but to act for us.”
Jesus constantly prayed, and yes, He acted, as we also need to do. My guess is believers are inactive because they are NOT praying. Jesus continues to pray for us now. He sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. He prayed for us in John 17.
Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus “ever lives to make intercession for us.”
Isaiah 56 says He couldn’t find an intercessor, so He became our intercessor. If we are to follow any example, shouldn’t it be to make intercession. We have lost sight of the power of prayer.
Psalm 72 says we’ll pray continually, even in the millennial kingdom.
Batterson writes, “yes we should pray, and pray again,” but in my 20 years of experience in ministry, prayer is THE hardest meeting to get attendance, and THE hardest personal discipline for believers to maintain. Any hit at doing instead of “being” leave the church dry, poor and weak.
Do, be, do, be, do. Emphasis on the be. 🙂
On the other hand, Batterson writes “most of us are far too tentative when it comes to the will of God.” I agree! We take a passive, back seat and treat God as if He’s some sort of mad, sad supreme being. I think He longs to partner with us. “Who’s willing? Who will go for Us?”
When I started writing, I had an encounter with the Lord one morning at church in prayer. The Lord clearly spoke to me about writing. But years pass and my writing career is nowhere.
One day, while praying, I said, “God, you told me…” And I repeated what He said. I called it into being. Yet, my heart remained, and remains even now, yielded to Him. He could take it all tomorrow if He wanted and set me on a new path.
But I reminded Him of what He told me. Within a year, I’d received my first contract. Yes we walk humbly, but yes, we are His Bride.
Batterson writes we need “good old fashioned guts!” Amen. Time to step out of our comfort zones, our PC sensitivities and live like the Holy Spirit dwells in us.
Book Blurb:
Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.”
“Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something….
Author Bio:
Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of Washington , DC ’s National Community Church , widely recognized as one of America ’s most innovative churches. NCC meets in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the city, as well as in a church-owned coffee house near Union Station. More than seventy percent of NCC’ers are single twentysomethings who live or work on Capitol Hill. Mark is the author of the best-selling In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and a widely read blogger (www.markbatterson.com). He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and their three children.