Can't get me, I didn't say 'amen'-off-ground-no-returns ahhh ha ha!

In sunday's service at Wakefield Baptist Church we prayed:

We pray for the Church

in it's stand for the poor,

in it's love for the the outcast and the ashamed,

in it's service to the sick and the neglected,

in it's proclamation of the Gospel,

in this land and in this place.

I like this prayer, it's my prayer. I didn't write it or lead it, but I prayed it and continue to do so. That said, it does need criticising, or rather I do if I'm to pray it.

"We (1st person plural) pray for the Church (also 1st person plural)"

'We pray for us', or 'I pray for me' is what's going on here essentially.

When I first read it, it took me a few moments to work out what I was actually praying for and this realisation came in several stages.

First: I could see 'poor' and 'outcast' etc and I thought 'Ooh, this is my kind of prayer, I'm going to like this prayer, I'll probably mean it'.

Second: I knew, before I could workout why, that it wasn't a prayer for the ashamed and the sick. It was then that I realised it was a prayer for the Church. 'How right is that' I thought 'that I spend this time praying for the Church rather than for the neglected, directly?'

Third: at this point I got to have a go at myself with one of the gripes I often reserve for those morons who are part of the Church but don't get it (that's a lot of people in my book, by the way).

This prayer starts here, 1st person singular. The Church is not some vague 'them' or other. It's not seperate or apart from, it's 'we', me included. If I am to criticise the Church (and I do all the time for multiple offences) I am to criticise myself. If I'm to criticise myself I am to call myself into change. If I am to do that and do not change, I'm wasting my time and my breath, both are quite valuable to me.

I could see how crap I am in my stand for the poor etc, and I appreciated this prayer from myself (though I did note that I'm not as crap as some people and poured mini-congratulations upon myself). The horror with prayer, and this prayer particularly, is that as one prays, one must surely open oneself up to the potential of having God answer the prayer through one. You dig? I can't pray for God to save you from drowning and leave it at that if I'm the one holding the ring, I've then got to throw you the ring too. So it is with this prayer; I pray it, I then have to be brave enough to let God answer, which means I have to be ready to do my part. (Ghandi's "Be the change you want to see" anyone?)

I guess this means I'm still working out if this is a prayer I really mean, it might just cost me something.