When post communion prayers go bad!

I don't know about you but most of those who go to church tend to do the responses by looking at the sheet and taking the aural clue from the person leading. A 'for instance' would be when after communion has been served the president (not 'president' not 'celebrant' for it is the people of God who 'celebrate' as the president presides!) does whatever post-communion prayer (it's after the communion so the name is a confirmation rather than hint perhaps) is set for the day and then leads the people into their prayer after communion.

Now the prayer the people often do when it come to their bit goes like this:

Almighty God,
we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.
Through him we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice.
Strengthen us in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory. Amen.

And the post-communion prayer today was:

Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So perhaps you can't blame the congregation for jumping in with their prayer because after all, the 'Almighty God' cue was there and even had I gone for the 'let us pray' cue - this would have undoubtedly had the same result!

What I perhaps should have done is said, 'And now, Me alone saying it. Let us pray . . . '

And gone for it hoping I'd done enough!

But it was funny as I began and found myself overtaken, beaten with a stick and left as the congregation did their bit.

But it made me laugh anyway :-)

Surviving sweet spiritual types

Discussing someone who is one of those rather sickly sweet Christians today and realised that the person I was talking to suffered from spiritual sugar aversion. In fact the more we discussed those wonderfully sweet and wholly inoffensive characters that bless us so much in the Christian world I realised that they were the source of so much grief to the rest of the Christian world.

You probably know the scenario: Everything is going pear-shaped and life is just a little too trying for words when up they pop and ask God's blessing on the situation with a twee, superbly spiritual, exhortation and a sweet smile to boot. Of course nothing changes and they don't actually grab a spade and get stuck in to resolve the situation themselves but they leave you with an assurance that god has heard and will indeed get the job done: and this is true. The problem is that it's true because you are left (often alone) to do it.

These are the same people who ask if you are OK just after you hit the floor! (you're on the blesséd floor for goodness sakes! Often when time is short and volunteers haven't materialised these are the people who want to stop everything and offer it up to God and ask for His hand on all that needs to be done (which of course takes more time and now you not only have less helpers but less time to redeem the situation). They are the same people who mutter, "Well hallelujah anyway - bless you," and then walk off to find a more rewarding task (like giving someone encouragement from the Scriptures or telling them of a time when . . . . ).

Now don't get me (or those I engaged with today) wrong. I love to pray and think that all too often we are into doing rather than praying beforehand, during and after (which I think is called petition, sustaining and praise) but there is a balance. For instance when there is a fire we get the people out, turn off the electrical supplies and attempt to put the thing out (whilst someone else rings the brigade) we don't tell everyone to stop and thank God for His plans in having the building alight! Neither do we tell those present that God is calling us to rely on Him in our hour of need. We get on and do what has to be done and we trust that He that watches over Isrea, the 'neither slumbering nor sleeping' person is doing exactly that with us!

So it seems that many of those out there are suffering from the sweet Christians and their trite and twee blessings, words of encouragement and the like and many, it appears, are pretty fed up with them. But before you toss them out with the bathwater can I point out that we do need these people. And to those people who are sweet - remember that there are times when perspiration and engagement with the task before them is more important than the sweet little platitudes and prayers.

Balance is all. We need those who will do the jobs and those who will bless, encourage, pray and do the other stuff. But we need them to be found in the same person and so if you are one of those 'so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good' types, suck it in and roll up your sleeves and then those who do but rarely (is there time to) pray might just be able to.

And when it's all going pear-shaped, remember that arriving and asking, "How do you think God might be wanting to bless us in whatever situation is before us," might just have, "Attending your funeral!" as the response.

The body is made up of many parts - just make sure that they don't rub against each other and cause raw bits :-)