Asking the pros to pray.
Jan 22nd by Jon(Ben Meredith is a professional prayerer. That’s an awkward word, isn’t it, but it’s true. He is a master of in the moment prayers and today he shares his three secrets in a great guest post.)
I’m a professional Christian. As a result of hiring an agent and declaring for the draft during my Junior year of college, I lost my amateur status. From that point on, it’s been nothing but salary caps and thinking through a shoe deal. Adidas, Nike, and Reebok, if you are reading this, I draw the line at shoes with light-up Jesus Fish on the back. That’s a non-negotiable must have for me.
The constant media attention and fans asking for autographs I was prepared for. What I was not prepared for was to always be asked to pray before every extended family potluck for the rest of my life.
I suppose I should have seen it coming. After all, I do have the red phone that rings on God’s jailbroken iPhone (God doesn’t like Apple telling him what apps he can install) installed in my house. In the biz we call that the “direct line.” Other amateurs and Monday morning quarterbacks have to go through his receptionist. They mostly get sent to voicemail, and I have it on good authority that He doesn’t even check his work voicemail.
So it’s a good thing I’m the one to dial it up when the family potluck needs christening.
We wouldn’t want the horrors of some part-time Christian blogger with a unibrow asking God to nourish our bodies with grandma’s Mac-n-Cheese.
How could you possibly ensure that the blessing-asker at your event is qualified to request nourishment for your body from the deep-fried and/or sugar-laden substances on hand?
Because I am pro, I am willing to give you some tips on spotting a counterfeit. The worst thing that can happen at these things is to not be aware of the signs. Like GI Joe always said, knowing is half the battle. Here are the 3 indisputable signs you are dealing with a non-professional.
1. Waist Line.
If the guy doesn’t have at least a 38-inch waistline, you are clearly dealing with an amateur. Like a major league umpire, in order to make it into the postseason you have to have called a few hundred games during the dog-days of August. If your blessing barista is still on his first latte, it’s going to be obvious. He should have packed on some serious weight from the months (or years) of Colonel’s Extra Crispy recipe with relentless Banana Pudding chasers. Don’t be afraid to use a tape measure on this one, as some fakers have been known to sew embellished tags in their trousers. Keep in mind the old adage “Waist of 38 is 38 minutes of prayer unwasted”
2. Wait.
That brings us to our next point. If the wait to get at the stacks of Dominoes Pizza is less than 15 minutes from the first “Our most gracious heavenly Father,” you are likely dealing with a faker. Real ministers have a pledge to keep. Most lay-people don’t know about it, but we ministers signed a deal with Sears Kenmore (specifically the microwave oven division) back in the late 60s stating that we would “endeavor to ensure the lukewarmness of each and every potluck until the second advent of Christ.” So if you catch a minister pulling what we call the “oven eliminator” and simply asking God to bless the food, you are not dealing with a professional minister. In fact, check that guy for a unibrow and snappy business cards about his blog. Real ministers are aware that 20 minutes is a recommended intro to a standard 7-point blessing. The seasoned veterans are going to be more likely to aim for the 40 minute TBT (Total Blessing Time) mark.
3. Words.
If you understood every word in your last pre-green bean casserole blessing, I have bad news. IPB (International Potluck Blessers) requires their members to invent (you read that right) at least three words per blessing. Some rookies try to sneak by with adding a “ness” or “itude” to the end of an already awkwardly long word. But the real Pros know that true prayer creativity is an art form. At my last potluck I extolled the Lord for the eccleslatitude of our culture. In my made up word I combined “ecclesiology” (the study of the Church) with “latitude” (freedom from constraints) to form a word that means “students of the church who feel freedom to go far and wide.” You don’t get that kind of verbal weaponry from one wikipedia article about praying before a meal. It requires hours of training. If your blesser thought they were bringing the heat by using the word “propitiation,” they’d better up their game a bit, because real ministers know that Merriam met Webster during the blessing at their church’s potluck.
In addition to using words we make up on the spot, pros are comfortable pronouncing any name from the first 9 chapters of 1 Chronicles without missing a beat.
So, folks, leave it to the professionals. Don’t believe it when the Bible tells you that all believers are priests, and that you have all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places (including the red phone) in Christ. That’s a bunch of propaganda. You can’t be too careful when it comes to ensuring the safety of broccoli casserole. And, if things go terribly wrong for you as a result of a less than top-shelf blessing combined with a less than warm meatloaf, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
(For more great stuff from Ben, check out his site.)
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Growing up, we had a member who was always asked to provide the benediction. The gentleman was an attorney for the US Government with a booming voice, so our 750 members heard every finely-crafted word he would send to the Father. In fact, his opening was so cool and kind-pretentious-yet-you-knew-he-really-meant-it to me I totally stole it (Dear Lord, precious Saviour) and use it even when I'm praying alone.
Now, the church picnic or social (Can't call it party!)? He was always on the sidelines, because apparently grace and sophistication was not necessary for blessing pimento cheese sandwiches and cheap gallons of "punch" (Read "Cheap, red-coloured water so loaded with sugar you could become diabetic after a couple of cups"), so the pastor oddly always called on these massive long-winded waddlebuses that would stammer and studder and act so pretentious in blessing the totally not-very-nutritious food to our bodies that the line would be queued up about halfway through their prayer.
Last year I was asked to bless the food at our church for a social, and it went like this:
"God, I would sound a bit more formal, but would you mind blessing the food? I'd say more, but you're probably hearing everyone else pray to you that I finish in a hurry so they can eat. Thanks! Amen."
I was actually asked to pray at another function. I wonder why?
Because the pastor was hungry. He did not need the long prayer, he wanted to eat. The hawaiian pizza was calling him more than God, and he fell in to allowing an ametuar. Trust me, My entire church with the exception of Chuck are professional short-prayers. We please the crowd, and If we really want to talk to god longer, we do so in our heads or during the extro to church. Suffer football watchers, why are you worried about who wins the super-bowl? You need to worry about God more.
Actually, I was being sarcastic, thought I appreciate the fact that I'm considered an amateur prayer-er-er. I've always treated my praying with God with a bit of wit and honesty because I'm fairly convinced God gets tired of all of the pompous prayers that people pray, so I think when I was telling God that I was cutting it short, He was smiling. Just like entire congregation that started laughing when I uttered those words.
If church can't be fun, why go? If I wanted to be bored, be beat over the head that being a prankster is somehow frowned upon, or, like the Internet, this is Serious Business(tm), I'd attend more faculty meetings at school.
Yes, someone else who understands how boring using elizabethan era english in public prayer is! And how tedious the eighth prayer every sermon somehow has. Love PGBC, since we really don't like over-praying, but constant prayer in our hearts. Plus, Cliches are made there.
Having meals professionally blessed tends to increase their deliciosity.
I concur.
deliciositynessitude, I believe would be the correct term.
Haha! Nice touch with the excessive use of… uhh…. wordage ending thinginesses.
Thanks for letting me post, Jon! You're the coolest blogger I know. And you can tell loswhit I said it.
Ha, he's way cooler than me.
Whoa! Is that a throwdownishment?
I think the worst part of long winded blessings is the part where you think they are wrapping things up – or worse, think they are finished when they are just gearing up for the finale. It's an awkward feeling to look up and see everyone still sitting in silence with their heads bowed.
It is indeed an awkward feeling.
We stayed with an Amish lady in her Bed & Breakfast in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At breakfast, she informed us and the other couple that Amish tradition is to pray before AND after the meal. The prayer before the meal is silent and the prayer after is aloud.
Awkward? I had no idea how long this little lady prayed before the meal! Hard to pray when you keep one eye open to see when she's done!
This post is full of inspirationality. 50 points for “Waist of 38 is 38 minutes of prayer unwasted."
Great. Now I'm craving jello salad.
I can't remember the last time I had jello salad.
I have a thirty six waist, and a thirty eight is my slack size. I am getting to that six-pack, but that would require the bike paths clear off for me to actually do my work-out.
Hmmm, well it looks like I only score on the last one. I've said it many times, I'm a terribly pastor. I mean really, I can never remember to collect offerings and counting is the last thing I think of. The only reason I know how many students attend on a given night is because I make them sign in and that is more about safety than anything else.
PS, if I use the word "frigintastic" in a prayer will that affect the overall sanctity of the prayer?
Nick, if it has, then tons of my prayers have been affected by the vocabulary contained in them. I will say this, I've had God get sarcastic with me on more than one occasion, so besides the point that that makes God the most totally awesome deity ever, I think it means He's cool with that.
You are on a blog, so it is satiricalistic.
Well this site is offering a free trial
http://prayer-helpers.com/
you can get one free trial prayer request then they are $9.99 a day, there claim to fame is that they charge less than the 10% tithe the Bible reccomends.
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Good Post!!!
Wow, that's all I've got. Wow.
that cant be serious right? I searched the site desperately looking for hints of irony but nothing! Please tell me I missed something, I'd be happy to be wrong (just this once mind!) The shame of missing irony is surely less than the mind blowing consequences of people actually existing who really think this is a good idea!
I've just spent 10 minutes searching that site for any tiny hint of humor…. If you can't find any either… I'm worried!
Who needs a prayer help? It is you, YOU he wants. Speak to him in your style, with all your normal quippage. Love that word. Thanks, Spidey, for giving me that one.
Wow! That's a bit disturbing! If they're prayerers were really so holy would they need to be paid to do it?
That's unbelievable. Even more unbelievable is that they have a link on their 'partners' page to a blog claiming that Joel Osteen is operating an "extraordinarily profitable religious scam operation". Hypocrisy, much?!
thats what confused me the most! I thought this might be a sign of some kind of self-referential irony, on a level so far above the majority of us that it would explain why we missed it. but I think its a serious thing!!
Wow. I wonder if they'll send me an email telling me it's all a huge (and elaborate) joke if I were to get the free trial prayer request? This is like hearing about some preachers who ask you to pay them to prophesy blessings over you and yours. And of course, the bigger your donation, the bigger your blessing.
After googling "pay for prayer" this other site came up in the links often enough that I had to check it out: http://www.informationageprayer.com/.
My grandfather (not a professional) had a standard beginning to all of his (pre-special meal like Thanksgiving or Christmas) prayers. No one ever knew quite what it was he was saying, but we think it was something like this: "Our most gracious-ness Heavenly Father, we _do_ (emphasis on the do) thank Thee." I don't know that I ever heard him pray any other time, and I certainly never heard him use King James language any other time!
Great post!
I especially love the word inventions…been guilty myself.
Oh, great. Now you've broken the Pastoral Cone O' Silence and allowed the hacks easy access to our prayer code. Soon any old Christian will be praying over meals. Then they'll start praying over everything else, too. I hope you're happy.
Isn't there a penalty for breaking the sanctity of the prayer code?
Awesome post! Hilarious. I pictured every imagine in my head, especially the 38+ waistline!
We have an ongoing joke about this in our family because no matter what kind of group we are in, my husband always gets asked to "give the blessing." Not sure what people see about him that screams "spiritual gift of praying out loud" (insert Jon's post on "not my spiritual gift" here). He is quite handsome, kind and friendly, but he doesn't go around talking in prayer form! I always find it comical that even sometimes among strangers they have an eye for spotting his "giving the blessing gift." At the same time, it breaks my heart that people – believers and unbelievers- think that there are only certain people who can talk to God out loud, not to mention at all.
'Spirital gift of praying out loud' – love it, I'm gonna have to store up that phrase for future use!
It's always a good idea to remind the "official blessor" before he begins that you've already had your quiet time today.
While growing up my family moved to be nearer to Bob Jones University and I attended their high school. We attended daily chapel/church services with the University students. There was no spring break. We had Bible Conference. The first service at 8:00 am was a prayer meeting where aspiring professional prayers and professional prayers would pray while everyone tried not to fall back asleep. It was a grueling 45 minutes.
Lessons learned:
1. each prayer must be at least 10 minutes long.
2. one must use KJV talk – Thee, Thou, "est" added to verbs.
3. keeping a balance between talking to God and lecturing your real audience
4. cover multiple topics because you should never assume others will – mix evangelism audience lecture with prayer for God to help missionaries or mix asking God's blessing for a building program with an audience plea for money
5. use big words – God likes it better
6. increase the speed and volume for emphasis then reduce your speed and volume to almost a whisper to draw your audience to be more attentive
7. don't bow you head much when speaking into a microphone – number six doesn't work well when you do
8. don't get too close to the microphone or you will embarrass and likely shock yourself.
FYI – my dad followed this method during family devotions and I was regularly for school. There are trade offs.
EV
At one church I went we had a lady professional prayerer. Sometimes in the middle of her prayer she would pause. But unlike a normal prayer pause of, oh, 5 seconds, her prayer pause lasted somewhere to 5 minutes. It was like she was trying to fake me out. I would always think she was done and look up. Lo and Behold! She was still at the podium with her head bowed and everyone else was also. Two minutes later the prayer would pick up again. She would do this multiple times in her prayer, so what was really a three sentence prayer lasted for ages.
After my great-grandfather's funeral, everyone came back to the house for food & the fellowship/family reunion. The preacher that did the funeral was there & before the buffet grazing began, my grandmother asked if he would bless the food. He said, "I didn't come prepared to pray". Crickets. Huh? A) you're a representative of the church, B) you just did a funeral, including prayers & a homily! Have you ever heard of a ministerial person turning down the chance to lead public prayer?! Anyway, someone else did it & we ate. Weird!
I knew they made up words…Just knew it!
The truth is out.
We wouldn’t want the horrors of some part-time Christian blogger with a unibrow asking God to nourish our bodies with grandma’s Mac-n-Cheese.
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Best line in there.
Are other denominations like this? I thought we So. Baptists had the market on professional prayerers. This guest post was articulate, funny, and dead-on truthful – great start to my weekend. I'll keep these rules in mind as I'm the one who always ends up praying before Sunday family dinners…
I just like all the jabs you took at Jon, even on your own personal blog.
I guess I am an Acuffist.
Thanks for the very entertaining post! Great stuff. I've been doing the family prayer for 30 years now but looks lie I'm still a rookie. I am so unworthy! Thanks, Jon, for sharing your platform with Ben!
All. Time. Favorite. Guest. Post.
There, I said it. I'm on quote overload. I don't know how long that took you to write, Ben, but I am in awe—not only at the humor, but also at the truth that seems packed into literally every sentence. I guarantee Moses and Elijah are talking about this post this morning at their water cooler.
How on earth can you do a post on prayer without mentioning "We just really want to ___" and saying God (or some appropriate variation, like Father, Lord, etc.) 38.2 times per sentence? "Lord God, we just really want to thank you for this meal, Father. Father, you are so good to us, Lord; and Lord, we just really want to thank you for your blessings, God."
Extra points for saying it as breathily as possible.
Breathily. love it.
Oh, thank God, we finally have a reason to decline the relentless invitations to pray at potlucks; we are COMPLETELY unqualified!!
That's true, that's a good get out of jail card
I'm only professional by default…I'm the only Christian on my husband's side of the fam. Funny how they don't mind admitting the only way the prayer will reach the Top is by asking me to do it.
Blessings totally overflowed from that blog post. I am pretty much ready to eat now after reading the holyisticness of that blog.
nice job, ben. a good dose of snarky as well as the expected satirical.
I love how the need to assign the right person to pre-food-prayer requires us to instantly and unashamedly rate the spiritual-ness of everyone in the room.
Start with the Pastor. No pastor present? Associate pastors are usually next in line. Then children's pastors. Then pastor's wives, then worship leaders, then …
Ha, I love the idea of working your way down the line when you need a prayer. That's great.
Personally, I always wondered what it means when they ask for an extra "unction" — and was never sure I wanted any. I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with dessert.
I'm a pastor so of course the mantle of professional prayer has been given to me by my family. I thought I was doing alright until I read this post. I now see what a rank amateur I’ve been the whole time, a mere poser when it comes to real prayer. I can't remember the last time I made up a word or prayed for so long the meal lost all its heat. I hang my head in shame.
Just went over and checked out the "Prayer helpers site" listed above http://prayer-helpers.com/
I was shocked that you can actually buy a prayer and have a person pray it for you. The disclaimers are interesting in case the prayer is not answered.
"Of course God’s will is unknowable, and we cannot promise that his plan has room for your prayer, but we do guarantee that our Prayer Helper will pray with all of their heart, asking Him to hear your prayer."
I think I'll let the Holy Spirit and Jesus pray for me. That's a bit more scriptural.
…and a bit cheaper
I like not needing a Paypal account to be able to reach God.
Amen!
I think it's always good to have some one designated to do the end run potluck prayer interception by saying "let's pray" and jumping in before the pastor gets the chance to start. It is true that pastors did make a deal with the microwave manufacturers… they get a kickback every year.
So… the "Prayer Helpers" site (http://prayer-helpers.com/) lost a little credibility with me for trying to Bring Back the Saint – you know, that extra holy human who acts as a go-between between you and God. Way to "mend the curtain", guys.
However, it lost even more credibility for some spelling and grammar errors in the prayers – how can I know that a prayer will be heard of it isn't even offered in the right phrasing and syntax? My favorite example: "Bless it be Your name" in the "Prayer f or Catholics" section. Bless WHAT be your name??
http://www.thisisyourbible.com
Great post bro!!!
i'm that person! i guess the fact that i teach junior high at my church makes me a praying pro in my family. although according to this post, i'm definitely faking it.
I love this site. I have a request that your next guest post be a female perspective on the Proverbs 31 woman. Sometimes I think I might hate her and have to remind myself it’s not her fault that Christians have milked her for instilling guilt, shame, anxiety and insecurity in women throughout the church. Can’t I just aspire to be like that hussy Ruth instead? I like her way better than miss perfect Prov31.
Every now and then, the churches in our town have a meeting to pray for the local schools, which is great. There's one old man who goes every time, and when the meeting is opened up for prayer people basically fight to get their prayers in before his, because once he starts he'll cover every possible angle (in a prayer that lasts around 20 minutes – I timed it once), so that after he's done there's literally nothing left for anyone else to pray. He's a lovely guy but definitely a professional.
[...] many Christians are afraid to say out loud, and that he does it in a witty, laughable way. (Read this one and this one, both are pretty recent posts.) It’s a shame that written communication is so [...]
I went to a wedding one time where the bride and groom took two hours to get from the wedding to the reception. The wedding coordinators wouldn't let anyone eat without them, so we were all starving when they got there. After they did their first dance and dances with their parents (again, two hour wait before this), their preacher stood up to bless the food for a loooong time. When he said, "And as our Lord Jesus blessed this way of life by his presence at a wedding in Cana," I said, much louder than I meant to, "God, you better turn some of this punch into wine. I'm just sayin'." I'm pretty sure at least one other table heard me. Yikes.
Oh, and then after the prayer, the preacher announced that the wedding party would get to eat first. My husband practically shouted, "But we've been here TWO HOURS!" Again, yikes. We were just so hungry.
For some reason, I'm always asked at family functions to give the blessing. Maybe it's because I think everyday is a beautiful day (inside family joke – I once thanked God for a beautiful day even though it was raining outside and I can't seem to live it down.). I keep wondering if it's because I'm short and sweet (yes me — and my prayers!)
As a laspsed member of a different Christian denomination and a current practicing Southern Baptist – I have to second the comments about the over-use of the "WE JUST" wordage…confusing to children as there are several "WE JUST" sentences per prayer – doesn't "JUST" suggesto "ONLY"???
Hmm… After reading this post – which I found absolutely hilarious, btw – I'm inclined to believe I'm not called to be a professional prayerer. Just sayin'.