Amendment to thoughts of prayer

Upon reflection, I wanted to amend my last post. I am not against group prayer as may be contrived by reading that post. Rather I think that in the optimal circumstances it is one of the best things a group of christians can do. I presented some strong reasons why I don't think the best circumstances exist for most christians in this country. But let me give you what I think those would be. When one reads through Acts and looks at group prayer as it happens in this book, there are some other circumstances that are strongly correlated with this. Acts 1:14 says that "these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." What was also present in that early church?

1) Unity in spirit/purpose (Acts 2:1). Without this unity I do not think that group prayer is of much use. I submit to the reader that there are two types of unity. The first is the unity that Christ grants us, the one spoken of in 1 John. This is the unity of the love of the brethren. All christians love each other because all have been born of God; and with this love comes the first degree of unity. This first degree is bought for us by Christ. The second degree of unity goes deeper than this though and is needed to be won in an experiential way. In my experience and from what I see in scripture, this deeper unity is needed. For example, Paul and Barnabas were brothers in Christ and so had that unity that is imparted from Christ. Yet they quarreled over John Mark and parted ways. Another example is found in Philipians 4 where Paul implores Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Undoubtedly these two were believers, yet Paul urges them to go deeper in their experience and practise of unity. From my own experience I have seen christians of different theological or experiential backgrounds that meet one another and are so different from each other that there is tremendous difficulty in them experiencing anything past the general love of the brothren. This lack of a deeper unity prevents and can preclude group prayer being good or effective.

2) Fellowship is something that seems rare these days in America but (I am firmly convinced) is needed for group prayer to be an edification and a good thing (Acts 2:42-47). These christians that Acts talks of here lived much of their lives together. They were in each other's homes, they worked with one another, played together, and took care of each other. There was a commonality of purpose, a feeling of aloofness from the world. They were the outcasts, the rejects of the Jewish and Roman society. They only had each other. This is a hint of fellowship and is very badly needed in the church of America today. When busy-ness crowds this out, prayer together looses its power. When differences in doctrine become too important or stressed, fellowship is lost. When love and togetherness starts to fade, prayer suffers.

What then? If these two vital things are not present in a church, how is the problem solved? If we force people to pray together with everything else be solved? No. Fellowship and unity come first then the ability to prayer together is found. And all grow together in greater and greater extents.