We go to a prayer meeting

National Day of Prayer, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, California
We were running late. Mindy got off work just fifteen minutes before the National Day of Prayer gathering began, and we didn’t have good information about where on Fresno Pacific University’s campus the event was being held. The red, white, and blue balloons helped --we were reminded of trying to find a new polling place: it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out for patriotic bunting.

Fresno Pacific University was founded by the Mennonite Brethren back in 1944. It’s not huge, but isn’t tiny either, with a student body of 4000 undergraduates and postgraduates on a 42-acre campus with 16 buildings (a number of which are chapels.) But we eventually found the well-populated meeting room. We weren’t as late as we feared we’d be, and according to the program we picked up as we entered, there was plenty of time left to pray.

The National Day of Prayer, observed the first Thursday of May, was enacted by the United States Congress back in 1952. Since then, every president has signed an annual proclamation urging prayer on this day.

There were several midday gatherings in Fresno, but with our work schedules, this was the only one we could attend. Soon after we sat down, Pastor Josh introduced a prayer of confession on behalf of our community and nation with a reference the Biblical book of Daniel. He mentioned that Daniel was one of the very rare figures in the Old Testament whose sin is not detailed. Moses and David were murderers, Abraham and Jacob were liars, Joseph was a braggart, Noah a drunkard, Samson was...what didn’t Samson do wrong?

Daniel on the other hand, in the very difficult situation of being dragged from his homeland as a slave, seemed to do everything right. But in his prayer, recorded in Daniel 9:5, he said, “We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and rebelled; we have turned away from your commandments and laws.” Following that example, we were urged to pray for our nation as fellow sinners.

We were asked to pray in the small groups that had been formed before, but since we’d missed that part, Pastor Angulus joined Mindy, our son Bret, and me. The room was filled with the sound of pleas for forgiveness.

A woman named Kathy introduced the theme verse for this year’s National Day of Prayer, Ephesians 4:3, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

This verse seemed particularly relevant in our polarized times, but when I looked around the room, I could see how truly people with differences were coming together. We were a group with a wide variety of ethnicities, races, and ages. The program made it clear that there were pastors from a number of churches. I’d also venture to guess that not everyone in the room voted the same way in 2016 or would vote the same way this coming November, yet we were joining together as people of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

One portion of the meeting was specific prayer that different ethnicities and races in our nation would come together. The speaker leading that portion pointed out that diversity was God’s idea -- in Revelation 7:9, people of every nation, tribe, people group, and language pray before the Throne of God. That bit of the God’s Kingdom to come is something we need to bring to earth now.

I enjoyed how the congregation was called to pray with different styles. “All right, now let’s pray popcorn style” with people praying short, one or two sentence, prayers.

“Let’s pray Korean style” meant we all prayed aloud, creating a rumble of prayer going to heaven. (It reminded me of martial arts films when fighters choose “Monkey Fist Style” or “Eagle Claw Style.” I may very well be the only person in the room who was reminded of this.)

The only sour note came during one of the popcorn prayers as we prayed for the communities of Fresno and Clovis. Someone prayed, “Lord, the greatest plague in our community is caused by drinking wine and beer which only leads to drunkenness.” To me, the prayer made as little sense as praying about the great plague caused by cutlery, which only leads to murderous knife fights. Almost all the other prayers that evening seemed to have an underlying sense of humility; this one had the tone of Pharisee of Jesus’ parable who thanks God he is not like the sinner praying next to him.

“Those who are able” were asked to kneel to ask for God’s protection, for security for our community and our nation. We rose to pray for a spiritual awakening for our nation. We joined our voices to sing praise to the name of Jesus. And we held hands before we went out, praying that the unity we had in that room would go forth in the community and the nation.

So whether you pray Popcorn Style or Korean Style, aloud or silently, Monkey Fist or Eagle Claw, I would urge you, too, to pray that God will bring this country, this world, His unity and peace.

We go to Church before the Big Game

Mountain View Community Church, Fresno, California
“I’m Tony, one of the pastors here at Mountain View Community Church, and welcome to Jersey Sunday!”

We’d already spotted quite a variety of jerseys: Niners, Raiders, Colts, Packers, Cowboys… But we didn’t see any Eagles or Patriots jerseys, probably because it was a Christian church. (I kid, I kid. Nowhere does Scripture explicitly say you can’t be a fan of Philly or New England. Well, Psalm 1:1 says not to walk with the wicked, but…)

The varied jerseys were not the usual Sunday attire at Mountain View, but the flags from many nations around the interior of the sanctuary and lining the driveway at the church entrance are there every week, which I believe signals that missions is a priority in the church. Just as Revelation 7:9 describes every nation and tongue represented in heaven, perhaps so is every flag (and jersey).

I think the worship service we attended was a more sparsely attended than usual, which is the case for most churches on Super Bowl Sunday. (I learned this early in my life of ministry when I was an intern at a large church with a large staff. When I was finally offered the opportunity to preach at a Sunday evening service, I was excited and happily accepted. Then someone else on the staff whispered to me, “You know that’s Super Bowl Sunday.” There were definitely fewer people than average at that service -- only about 600 -- but it’s still the biggest crowd in my preaching experience.)

Still, I think was smart to use the football theme while they could. For instance, the sermon began with a clip from an episode of last week’s Jeopardy. The contestants had left the “Talkin’ Football” category for last. The three players were unable to answer a single question. None of them were willing to even hazard a guess, to Alex Trebek’s amusement. Pastor Fred Leonard noted the frustration of watching people who were unable to answer questions when we knew the answers, which led into a discussion of how much more important it is to know God’s love, focusing on Romans 8.

The Missions Moment before the sermon was also introduced with a video clip. When the missions pastor, Mary-Tyler Wahl, mentioned the film Pay It Forward, I was concerned; a Kevin Spacey film clip might be a bit awkward considering the actor’s recent mentions in the news. But the clip was instead a Cheerios commercial on the theme of giving. After the video clip, the congregation was encouraged to contribute to the Pound of Love program, a monthly food and clothes give away. Mary-tyler did say that Pound of Love was different from the idea of paying it forward: the gifts are given with no strings attached, with only the goal of demonstrating Christ’s love.

One of the challenges of writing about churches every week is that good churches tend to do many of the same things, but this church had many little things that they just did very well. I liked that they took the offering during the opening of the sermon. The worship team led the congregation in singing rather than performing before them, and I appreciated that the lyrics on the screen were in Spanish as well as English.

I very much appreciated the way the church handles visitors. Part of the area where people gather before and after worship services is a Guest Hub which newcomers are encouraged to visit, and different visitor’s gifts are offered for the three first visits (a candy filled mug for the first visit, a t-shirt for the second, and a book for the third). Donuts are available in the Hub every week, too.

Long tables in with information about (and sign-up sheets for) small groups were in the gathering area and at one of the main entrances. I noticed that there were sign-ups for Spanish language ministries as well, and the staff of the Spanish language congregation (which meets on Sunday afternoons) was featured with other staff portraits in the Guest Hub.

It so happened that on the day we visited there wasn’t much of a mountain view because of Fresno smog and fog. The other half of the name, representing God’s community in that place, is obviously a constant.