All at Once

Since I work in a Bible College, students have chapels three times a week (Mon. Wed. & Fri.) and since my work schedule changes from week to week, I have my days off either on the weekend or during the week, so I’ve been convinced that simply reading and meditating the Word by myself and going to church when I was not working was not enough, since I had the opportunity to attend chapel on my days off. So I started doing that, to hear the Word preached and to worship as a community of people.
Anyways, this morning I was in chapel and the students who had gone on a mission trip to Thailand this semester, were doing a report on it with pictures and everything. At the end they put a list of prayers requests and needs up on the power point. And all the students and staff were invited to stand up and start praying out loud, all at the same time. So when the student told us to start, then most people started to pray about Thailand and etc. People were not loud or wild about it (I’ve experienced that in a church and it was pretty… different.) they were just praying using a normal tone and volume. I don’t really know what I think about that. People praying out loud all at the same time. I know that God understands each prayer, but I don’t know how good it is to do that as a congregation (obviously, you need to be more than one person to do that kind of thing!) I understand that prayer is prayed to God, not to people around, but shouldn’t we be able to understand what people say? It makes me think of the gift of “speaking in tongues” Paul told the Corinthians 14:26,28 “… When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two – or at the most three – should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.” I know that Paul is giving instruction to the church of Corinth so they would know how to behave and do things in the church and that the students and staff at Bethany are not called a church when they have chapel. But if we just look at the text Paul says “When you come together” so it makes me think that anytime believers gather together for any kind of meeting (Sunday morning, evening, Wednesday night and else) we should behave ourselves in these manners. I know that praying and speaking in tongues can be two different things (meaning that people who spoke in tongues, sometimes were praying in tongues and sometimes were speaking to the brothers in tongues or etc.) so here I’m saying that since Paul said that people speaking in tongues should be 3 at the most, that these 2-3 different people should speak up one at the time, one after the other, with the translation / interpretation of what they said. Why? So the people around would be able to understand what is said, and be strengthened. And Paul ends basically saying that if people can’t understand what you say, then you should keep quiet and pray to God in your heart.
I don’t know if I can compare prayer in a community of believers and speaking in tongues… But I think that all of the gifts and everything we do together as a congregation should be done for the strengthening of the people around and with order. Just look at the beginning of the passage, Paul writes about singing hymns, words of instructions (that could include church bulletin info?!), revelations from the Word / exhortations, a tongue or interpretation. Then Paul says that all of these should be done for the strengthening of the church. The he gives further instructions on speaking in tongues. So I don’t know, but if we gather together and start praying out loud all at the same time, will the contents of the prayers strengthen the people? Well, apart for what you are praying, you won’t understand a thing. You could be strengthened by your own prayers, but still, that’s not the goal of getting together as a group of believers.
I’ve said some cons about this issue. Now I’ll share to pros.
I must say that I did not pray at all while people were praying out loud. I was sitting at the back of the chapel where seats are reserved for staff (I feel important sitting there… well not really actually) and so I was not in the midst of the crowd and I just kind of watched and thought about this whole thing. Since it was done in some type or order and nothing was too loud or wild, I thought that it was actually neat. I just had the picture of God looking down to these 170 students and staff praying to Him standing up. I thought that it was rather a glorious image. I mean, when people all pray at the same time together but in their hearts, God listens to as many people at the same time, so it doesn’t change much for HIS understanding. Nobody is strengthened either. I don’t know actually. Anyways, I have no biblical support for this things, I see more biblical support against it. But still I don’t know everything so.

That was my little experience this morning. Anybody has any thoughts on that? There is much more I could write, but I realize that my entries are sometimes pretty long. Please leave a comment, email me gabeleroux@yahoo.ca say something about what you think, either to strengthen the pros… or the cons!