[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Farticles\u002Fa-house-of-prayer":3,"\u002Farticles\u002Fa-house-of-prayer-surround":75},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"bibleBooks":8,"body":12,"columnName":58,"date":59,"description":18,"extension":60,"image":61,"meta":62,"minRead":63,"navigation":64,"path":65,"postType":66,"publication":34,"publicationUrl":61,"seo":67,"stem":68,"topics":69,"__hash__":74},"blog\u002Farticles\u002Fa-house-of-prayer.md","A House of Prayer",{"name":7},"Dave Faust",[9,10,11],"Matthew","1 Timothy","1 Peter",{"type":13,"value":14,"toc":54},"minimark",[15,19,22,25,28,36,39,42,45,48,51],[16,17,18],"p",{},"In 1976 I was a young minister serving in my first church, and Faye was a widow—one of the oldest members of the congregation—but we quickly became good friends. She lived in a tiny house trailer on her son's farm. When my wife and I visited her, we paused to admire the horses in the pasture nearby before stepping into her living room where she always greeted us with a cheerful smile.",[16,20,21],{},"Occasionally after church on a Sunday evening, she'd invite us to join her for a sandwich at McDonald's—her treat. \"Go ahead,\" she'd insist. \"Order anything you want—even the Big Mac!\" And we did.",[16,23,24],{},"Faye's son ran a grocery store, so once in a while she would bring us some extra food to stock our kitchen. One day she asked, \"Do you ever eat beef liver?\" I replied, \"Once in awhile.\" When we moved to a different ministry a couple of years later, my wife and I had to figure out what to do with a freezer full of liver!",[16,26,27],{},"I phoned Faye the other day. We laughed and reminisced together. \"I still live in the trailer,\" she said, \"but my son sold the horses years ago.\"",[16,29,30,31,35],{},"She still goes to church every Sunday and still receives ",[32,33,34],"em",{},"The Lookout",", though her failing eyesight makes it hard for her to read it anymore.",[16,37,38],{},"People like Faye encourage others by their kind deeds and positive examples—and they spend a lot of time in prayer. First Timothy 5:5 says \"the widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.\" How true! Some of the church's greatest prayer warriors are elderly saints who (to paraphrase my friend Russ Blowers) have turned \"retirement\" into spiritual \"refirement.\"",[16,40,41],{},"Someone has said that the pulpit is the \"boiler room\" that sets the church's spiritual temperature. If so, then a congregation's prayers are the fuel that feeds the fire. But if we're not careful, other priorities smother the flame. Many church programs involve more frantic activity than faithful prayer. Remember Jesus' stinging rebuke when he cast the merchants and moneychangers out of the temple? \"It is written . . . 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers'\" (Matthew 21:13).",[16,43,44],{},"Today God's house isn't a temple of stone; it's the church—the people in whom his Spirit dwells (1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Peter 2:5). Are our congregations really households of prayer?",[16,46,47],{},"Some churches set aside facilities—prayer chapels or gardens—to encourage communication with God. Others form small groups to pray strategically for world missions, school children, parents, and government leaders. Some hold prayer vigils, retreats, and prayer services on Thanksgiving or New Year's Eve.",[16,49,50],{},"But there are other ways to weave prayer into the fabric of church life. Shouldn't we pray more and worry less when it's time to call a new minister, unite a couple in marriage, send out a missionary, or begin a building project? Shouldn't we pray more and quarrel less when a church is on the verge of a split or dealing with a delicate matter of church discipline? Wouldn't meetings of the church staff, elders and deacons, and committees or ministry teams be more productive if we spent more time consulting with the all-wise Master?",[16,52,53],{},"There are many things we can do, I suppose, but it all starts in the heart. And in a house trailer on a horse farm where a godly old woman prays every day for her minister.",{"title":55,"searchDepth":56,"depth":56,"links":57},"",2,[],"From the Editor's Desk","1999-03-21","md",null,{},3,true,"\u002Farticles\u002Fa-house-of-prayer","column",{"title":5,"description":18},"articles\u002Fa-house-of-prayer",[70,71,72,73],"Church Leadership","Spiritual Formation","Biblical Theology","Intergenerational Ministry","AXIQTflmoXATzhGqSrhDnxYXlG_1NyCRvZng8w39CFQ",[76,81],{"title":77,"path":78,"stem":79,"description":80,"children":-1},"A Debt We Owe Our Children","\u002Farticles\u002Fa-debt-we-owe-our-children","articles\u002Fa-debt-we-owe-our-children","A letter arrived in my mailbox recently offering a credit card with a low interest rate and a credit line up to $50,000 with no annual fee. Nothing terribly unusual about that, you say? Well, this letter was addressed to Mindy, my 13-year-old daughter! Evidently the potential lender acquired her name from a mailing list, but didn't realize her age.",{"title":82,"path":83,"stem":84,"description":85,"children":-1},"A Kingdom Perspective","\u002Farticles\u002Fa-kingdom-perspective","articles\u002Fa-kingdom-perspective","What do your senses experience when your church gathers for worship?"]