The Prayer Meeting is Dead!

APOSTOLIC PRAYING

As we look to the biblical account of the book of Acts we see the striking theme of prayer throughout its testimony. We see in it apostolic prayer that depends on God, that is desperate before God. The Church was founded in prayer; it began at a prayer meeting in the upper room in Jerusalem. The Church began in prayer, was sustained in prayer and continues in prayer to this day. If a people are not praying they are straying. If prayer is not paramount and prominent then we are paralyzed and powerless. “We live, move and have our being in God”, in communion and prayer with God. When we begin to see a drift from the success of the book of Acts in our modern day Church attempts we will also see a straying from this foundational principle of prayer.

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The Christian Response to Caring for the Elderly

Unwanted parents long for the grave

Even though I should not complain, but rather thank God, for all my worthy children, I will still try to awaken you to more carefulness, humility, virtue, honor, and obedience, so that you at no time in joy or sorrow become unthankful for your parents. I have often been asked, “Why can a father and mother raise twelve children, but twelve children cannot take care of their father and mother?”

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Superficial Revival

1790-1875

I recently came across a small, scarce collection of letters written by Charles Finney toward the end of his life. They are exhortations concerning his perspective of the growing superficiality of church life and revival meetings around the year 1870. As I read, I could not help but mourn over the state of the church as we now experience it 130 years later. It takes little imagination to figure what his response would be to the rock bands, comedy routines, T-shirt sales and empty conversions that typify “revival meetings” of our day.

It is my prayer that this timeless reprimand will spur us in returning not only to the revival fire of the 1830’s, but further still, until the Book of Acts becomes our reality in this day. Below is an excerpt from this collection. --Dean Taylor

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