Korean(?) Style Prayer

Firstly, I don't really identify with the term 'Korean' style because I'm not from America and I've never heard of this term until Caleb mentioned it during the meeting. But I guess this is what a communal prayer where everyone is praying on their own at the same time is called here.

I believe the first time I experience this was sometime while I was attending the Assemblies of God Church back in Malaysia. I'm not sure if the AOG here is the same but I would presume so. I remember one event very clearly. My sister injured her knee or something and the people that ran the Sunday School decided to pray for her. That's the first time I saw what laying hands but I don't think I quite understood it then. I was about 10 at this time. So Ruth, a slim lady about 22-23 years old sat down with my sister on the floor and started praying and everyone started joining in and praying. Some out loud, some in their hears. The sight of this was somewhat amazing. Ruth you see, was kind of frail looking, always pale and never without her blue cardigan despite the hot weather in Malaysia. I sometimes wondered if she would just fall really sick and die. Not being in such a good shape herself I wondered how she could pray for others too, really believing that God can heal and with that, bringing others into prayer.

That was one event of the usual Charismatic flair that would occur at Church. When I'm praying with others, there are time when I really feel like praying outloud too. Praying outloud is something new to me because I never had the courage to do so until I joined small group last fall. Opening and closing a prayer is different, I mean praying outloud as in saying out all the things I'm saying to God in my heart at that moment of time. Here in AA, I had a couple, maybe 3 experience with a small prayer group where everyone was just praying outloud. Sometimes when I has things to say I'd join in, and when I had nothing to say, I'd listen to another person's prayer. I believe simply coming together to pray is something God really loves and I don't want to restrict anybody when they are compelled to pray. I pray that we're led by the Holy Spirit everytime we have a prayer meeting and if someone feels the Spirit is urging them to pray out I want them to be comfortable doing do. I also don't want them to feel awkward if we start going around in a circle and it comes to their turn. They shouldn't be praying because it's 'their turn'. I don't want them to be focused on coming up with a prayer either. I hope they can be relaxed and pray at their own pace and listen to prayers with a clear mind if they want to.

So I hope to lead my next and hopefully every prayer meeting this way. It doesn't matter if people pray outloud or not. I want to give everyone the freedom pray what their heart is calling out for. They can pray in their hearts if that is what they're comfortable with. And I will pray that they will have the courage to pray outloud if that is what the Spirit wants. I will just be praying and throwing out things I want to pray for as the meeting goes along. If there is someone who want to shout out praises that's great and if someone can play a worship song that's great too. I felt conversational prayer was awesome during small group but for the past week, the idea of something freer during a prayer meeting is just stuck in my head. All I need is for God to use me to gather people together in prayer and worship and I hope that God uses me to compel others to pray while I'm praying.

From Kelli: Finally

my first question is-where is jodi? did i miss something.. cuz i know she's in spain, but she has internet and such, no? and jimmy?

Sorry I've been MIA guys. my computer has so many downs since school got out and it's been a while for me to get it sorted out. Been trying to read all your guyses lovely posts, but that's been keeping me busy as it is!

just a little info on me: I'm staying in ann arbor this summer working at the hospital as a nurses' aid, solely by God's grace did I get this super de dooper job. So many great encounters with God and with the patients, though conflicted because the patient may say they believe, but then act horribly to the nurses. I know we are not perfect, but, for lack of a better way to put it, it looks bad on Christians. That's just the most recent story, there are many more good ones too :D

With work schedule, it's been a real time balance (having 3 12 hours days/week). I can honestly say I've been to every small group bible study! however, still need prayer/discipline for my own time with God. I've been making small steps such as downloading daily devotions apps on my itouch (since i'm on it so much as it is -.-) and journaling. Thanks guys for all the time you've already put into this blog! It's weird, but it makes me feel that we are all connected and thinking together, to an extent.

one point I'd like to make is the importance of sabbath. We read Hebrews 4 at sg this past week and It really struck me. I know all our sabbath's (-es?) are different, but what would a whole day of just listening to god and separating from the technology and distractions of people do for my spiritual life? This is especially do-able for me at least. Sadly I haven't put it into practice yet, but WHEN i do, y'all will be the firsts to know :D:D:D I really encourage you guys to do the same. we need to ENTER his presence and make every effort for Him.

AWESOME UPDATE. lloyd and I went and did contact evangelism on saturday. after lots of rejections, we met some really cool people and lloyd got a name to contact on fb with follow up and we met a phd student who just moved to aa from boston, hopefully he will be coming to some events over this summer etc. ps his name is jorge (hor-hey) pray for him!!! :]

ps- were we supposed to read a book/do fasting or something this summer? also, does everyone have oovoo? maybe we could attempt a group chat/prayer sometime! mainly with diane and caleb since idk about jodi. ESP before Mark leaves?! :D

Harvest Prayer Meeting

I just came back from Harvest's Prayer meeting. Wasn't planning on going initially even though Mark asked earlier in the Morning. Last minute God gave me some extra time and first thing I thought of was to go to the prayer meeting.

Still faithful

More than 2000 years later, we're still waiting for what the apostles probably thought will come during their lifetime. The hope that the day of the Lord will surely come remains. Aren't we amazed at the same hope we all share as we read about people who lived during days long gone.

Shawshank Redemption

So I just got back from watching "The Shawshank Redemption" at House China. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, it came just short of winning those awards because of "Forrest Gump". Just this past March, the film was rated as the favorite film by BBC Radio listeners which means this movie...is legit haha. 


The film starts with a flashback of a banker, Andy Dufresne, sitting in his car plotting the murder of his wife. Andy is on trial for the murder of his wife and her lover. He (nonchalantly) claims that he is innocent for the crime, appealing to a certain unfortunate series of events that "inconveniently" pointed to him as the murderer. The evidence is overwhelming and Andy is sent to the Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine with a back-to-back life sentence; two life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover. The main plotline of the film is the life that Andy spends inside Shawshank and how he uses the time that he spends in prison. It's a film that focuses on the fruits of hope and what a man (or woman :P) can do with time at his or her disposal. 


Why do I love this film so much? And why the heck am I writing about this on our prayer blog? Here's why:


1). Morgan Freeman. 

I like Morgan Freeman as an actor. Yeah in this picture he's God so it's kinda blasphemous to post this picture of him, especially on our blog, hahah but white is classy. Freeman plays the narrator (Red) in the movie. He was convicted a life time sentence at Shawshank at a very young age and he's the first friend that Andy makes. The movie develops the relationship of these two men as they spend years together at the Shawshank prison. I'm not a big movie critic or a judge on actors and actresses, but I'd have to say that Morgan Freeman does a helluva job in this one. 


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2). The Message of Hope


I have three questions to ask: How is hope defined in the Bible? Why do we hope? And what do we hope for as believers?


How is hope defined in the Bible? 

           "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."      

                    -Hebrews 11: 1

If we do some inductive (savvy) interpreting here, we can see that hope is that of which "we do not see" by a sort of transitive property; hope is the object of our uncertainty. The passage is defining what faith is and by its definition of faith, it depicts some of the characteristics of hope. As mentioned earlier, we hope for things we are uncertain about. If faith is what we are certain for, then hope is what underlies that idea; we hope for things that are uncertain, otherwise, it wouldn't be hope.


Why do we hope? 

"And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith...If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

 -1 Corinthians 15:14,19

I think we studied this passage in small groups during the first semester. It basically says, "Look, if Christ was never resurrected, all the things we're teaching you, all the things we sacrifice for, all the things we do, are useless. And because we do those things, we are 'to be pitied more than all men'." Why do we hope? Because Jesus' resurrection has given us a reason to believe in His Word and have a certain faith in His message of salvation.

What do we hope for?

"...But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."

 -1 John 3:2-3

1. "But we know..." If we know that He will appear, then by our definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1), we also hope for his appearance. This hope is solidified into faith because His Word guarantees it. 
2. "Everyone who has this hope in him..." This hope is referring to the phrase before it - "...we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." We hope to be like God. If we are to "see him as he is" and as a result "be like him", then our desire or our hope is to be like God. 
3. "...this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure." The fruit of the hope to be like in His image. We become pure, just like Jesus is pure.

**Honorable mention:

"But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation - if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel."

-Colossians 1:22-23 

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"Forget that...there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside...that they can't touch, that they can't get to...that's yours."

"What is that?"

"Hope" 

 -Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

These are the words that Andy spoke to Red after Andy explained how music is something that the walls of Shawshank couldn't take from inside of a person. I love this message of hope. I don't want to give away spoilers, but you can see how hope drives Andy in the movie. Andy's hope in the movie is to not let the prison get to him, to not be "institutionalized" as Red describes it. He settles his mind by helping people, like he did when he was a banker. He does their taxes, he builds up a new prison library, and he sculpts chess pieces out of rocks. Red observes that he did it "just to feel normal". 

We as believers here on earth have a hope for something. Something...bigger than the world. Something bigger than us; something bigger than what we know. And we are to set our hearts on it. 

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

-Colossians 3:1-2

Our hope is for things above. We are hopeful for eternal life. We are hopeful to be like God. We are hopeful to be of God's image. God commands that we do not dwell on earthly things, but that we set our hearts and our minds on the things beyond what we know of here on earth.  Like Andy did, he set his hope on things that he knew that were beyond the walls of Shawshank. Somewhere inside of him, he knew that there was more to rocks and steel bars, even after each decade passed within the walls. And that hope drove him to live life inside behind bars. I think, as believers, we don't live life unless we have our hearts set on something we know is better than what surrounds us. We can't live without dwelling on the things above that God speaks to us about in His Word. 

"Better get busy living. Or get busy dying."

-Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

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3). Discipline

This is something I struggle reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealz hard with. Not just spiritual discipline; discipline in general. Discipline of the body, discipline of the mind, discipline of the spirit. I believe discipline is a gift. Even though it is something possible for everyone to have, I believe discipline is a gift to individuals who use it well. 

Here's a crazy example of what discipline can do:

Read the description. 35 hours. On a pole. Imagine...imagine the discipline of both his body and mind that he had to have in order to stay up there for 35 hours. Cuh-razy. 

I've seen discipline work before my eyes and I've seen the fruit of that discipline. It's something hard to admit after you see the outcome; you simply don't want to face the truth sometimes: hard work pays off. 

I have a friend. Tall, built asian kid. Wasn't always that way. Entered high school just tall and skinny. Played for the football team in the fall, ran for the track team in the spring. He did hurdles with me; he was fast, but had pretty crappy form. The football team, as you all know, has offseason workouts for all the football players. This kid worked out everyday. Hard. Pushing himself in the gym, pushing himself in workouts, pushing himself in training. During the track season, he stretched hard (believe it or not, yes, you can stretch hard and you can just "reach"), he would stay after practices and ask for further advice on form, AND THEN hit the weight room (weight room not required during the season, especially during late season. Yeah...sprinters had it good). There wasn't a single year where I didn't hear kids talkin' behind his back like, "Why's he work so hard? It doesn't do him any good...he still sucks at football (don't know if this is true)" and "All he does is work out, doesn't he know it's not doing anything for him?" and "That kid works too hard for nothing." The result of his hard work? He cut his 110m hurdles time by a total of 3 seconds since his freshmen year to senior year. He holds the current 110m hurdles record at our school; he broke it at the end of his junior year and set his own record his senior year. He made states for the first time his junior year, was the regional champion for the 110m hurdles his senior year, and earned ALL-STATE just a week ago. Sorry to break his streak, but because he's visiting Korea for the summer, he can't go to nationals (our hurdles shuttle team took fifth at nationals last year with him as the anchor (the fastest person on the team)). Did I mention that he can do the freaking splits now because he stretched everyday, both at practice AND at home? Yeah. Discipline. 

In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy earns the role as the library assistent. He sees how pitiful the library looks and decides to ask the Warden for funds to build a new library. The Warden denies him with zero funds so Andy decides to ask the state government for funds by writing letters. Andy knows he'll get denied by the state, so he sends one every week in order to persuade them. He doesn't get anything until 6 years later: he gets a small check of $200 and some donated books. He wants more than that so he begins sending two letters a week, ignoring the state's request for him to stop sending letters. I forgot the amount of time after the first reply, but Andy eventually got the full amount he needed to fully fund a new library in the prison. 

Andy does many other things with the time that he has behind bars. I could go on a long list, but the thing that strikes me (and it may not be for all of you), is that he utilizes his time so well. He knows he has a lifetime sentence (double that actually) so he's OK with how much he'll need to persist; I mean, he's got the time haha. But he persists. He doesn't stop; he isn't discouraged. Time might have felt slower in prison for the convicts; they just had so much of it. What Andy did with that time set him apart from others. 

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Application? Spiritual discipline. Bible reading, prayer, fasting, Bible reading, prayer, and prayer. Did I mention prayer? Not sure. Oh yeah, and prayer. 

At the end of high school, I had asked myself, "What if, for the past four years of high school, I had actually read the Bible and prayed everyday? What if?" I always thought to myself "Oh hey, it's not a big deal if I miss one day..." which it really isn't...unless I think that way everyday. 

We are certainly impatient people. We don't see results, we don't see outcomes, we don't see change right away, so we give up. Not give up right away, but we lose a little hope with every passing day. I think if we realize that there's something more going on besides us doing a laundry list of spiritual disciplines every day, we would be more persistent in what we do. That, ultimately, the fruits of our disciplines shows years later, not right away. This is why we set "our minds on the things above", we know of God's transformative power to shape us and change us over time. We know there is something out there bigger than what we know, something we don't understand. 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." 

-Isaiah 55:9

I want to trust in God; I want to have my hope in the things that are above. The discipline that is necessary for a believer can only be fueled by that hope; the Gospel Message is what fuels it (Colossians 1:22-23). And not only just do these things, but do them with the right attitude and the right heart. Like I said with my friend stretching hard, just "reaching" isn't enough; you gotta push yourself during your quiet times, your prayers, your fasting, your outreach. You have to go beyond the typical "Thanks for the weather. Help me for X, Y, and Z. Amen." And you gotta do it daily. This is my call for all of us to go beyond everyday, to set our hearts on the beyond everyday, to set ourselves apart from the world, so that we can be like God, purified in His image. 

"For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will be with him in glory".

-Colossians 3:3-4

Glory awaits us.  

The Notorious "mhm"

The title says it all: I want to talk about the mutters and nods of agreement during a prayer meeting. 


So what exactly am I talking about? What are these "mutters and nods of agreement during a prayer meeting". I am talking about when you're praying and someone, next to you or across the circle, hums an "mhm" or whispers a "yes Lord" in response to the words that you just prayed. The contents of this post relate to conversational prayer, the way that AIV does a majority of its prayer. Conversational prayer is the prayer being carried out like a conversation; one person speaks, the other listens, and then they switch. In a group setting, one person prays and everyone listens. Obviously this would post is irrelevant for something like "korean-style prayer" aka praying in one voice. Here's what I think about the mutters and nods of agreement. 


"Prayer has everything to do with the agreement of the human heart with the words that are said." 


This quote was spoken by Jess Shao, the Chinese Director of IHOP. I had heard him speak at the retreat my church went on this past memorial weekend. I completely agree with what Jess says: you speak words from your heart so obviously your heart agrees with the words that are being said, but what does your heart agree with the words that others say? I think I could change Jess' quote a little bit and say: "Corporate prayer has everything to do with the hearts of the people agreeing with the words that are said." How much more aligned and in tune are two people when their hearts both agree with the words that are spoken during prayer? It has a powerful effect  on the relationship, I believe. When two people's hearts desire for the same thing and they pray about it together and the words spoken are words that both could interchangeably use for their respective prayers, God is among them and will answer that prayer. 


"Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven." 
-Matthew 18:19-20


So the question now is...why and how should we express our agreement with other peoples' prayers? Why should we express our agreement with others' prayers?
Simple. It works both ways. For yourself, if you're looking to agree with another person's prayers, audibly expressing your agreement is a way of making sure you're paying attention and your mind isn't drifting away. 
It also allows the person praying know that people are respecting their prayer, they are listening to their prayer, and they are agreeing with what their saying. Like the verse from Matthew says, when two agree, our Father in heaven will answer that prayer. So a person praying and the person listening know that they both agree. 
How should we express our agreement with other peoples' prayers?
Personally, I feel that the "nods of agreement", the mutters of "mhm" and "yes Lord" are good enough. I think it's overboard if someone is praying in a normal tone and someone yells "YES, PRAISE GOD" and while I love the enthusiasm, the focus of that interruption has gone from God to the person expressing agreement. 


So, in short, I encourage these mutterings of "mhm" and "yes Lord" during prayer meetings! I feel personally that I am encouraged when I hear the agreement from other people in a prayer meeting haha and I feel, for lack of a better word, "better" about the prayer I am making (not that I am to base what I pray off the reactions of others, but requests and desires backed by friends feels good nonetheless). Imagine a meeting where everyone contributes their own act of agreement to a person's prayer...how much more encouraged is EVERYONE in that group from the words that that person speaks and prays. 


Thoughts.