Walking into the only occupied room in the building, I was shocked to see nearly 200 people sitting in folding chairs, all attentively focused on the person in the front of the room. The energy in the room was electric, even though everyone was sitting down... One man was bluntly, directly, and specifically sharing about his sins, failures, and ways that he had hurt others, from the front of the room. When he finished sharing, the entire room burst into applause. And then the next person stood up to confess... and the next... and the next... and each one began with:
Hello, my name is ____ and I'm an alcoholic.
The actual prayer meeting started at 7pm. It was attended by less than half that number. Confession was private and about 5 minutes long. And the energy picked up at the end, when we began to pray for transformation and revival in the church...
It wasn't a bad prayer meeting by any stretch of imagination... in fact, I've been in many that were far worse... and the people there legitimately love the church, grieve their own sin, and have a heart for those outside of the church... please don't get me wrong...
but I wonder... what would happen if our prayer meetings were a little bit more like AA meetings? what if we were actually confessing our specific personal and corporate sins and struggles, rather than vague and general sins that we all kind of struggle with but no one is willing to own? What if we applauded when sin was confessed, rather than just sat in awkward silence? What if we actually walked alongside one another rather than just talked about it?
- Maybe we would actually understand that the gospel is good news...
- Maybe we would really repent together and really get grace together...
- Maybe the hypocrisy of the church wouldn't run quite so deep...
- Maybe we would actually have deep community...
- Maybe our prayer meetings would be more full of life and heart-felt prayers...
Repentance comes before revival.
That isn't just a vague nicety...
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