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Join us following worship in the Van Roon Community Hall for the He/SheBrews Café.
- Join us this Sunday, October 19 as we welcome guest musician and worship leader Keith Macpherson. It promises to be an uplifting and inspiring experience.
- A Place At The Table – The 2026 Stewardship Campaign Hopefully you have received an email announcing this year’s Stewardship Campaign. Printed copies are available at the church starting this Sunday with third quarter statements. Please read it carefully and respond in the way that is best for you. We are thankful that we can turn to our community and ask for financial support. Together we make a difference in hundreds of lives as we have done for over a century. Feel free to contact us with any questions. Thank you for your prayerful consideration.
- Affirming Ministry Task Group Education Event – Join us Tuesday, November 4 at 7:00 for an evening of listening and conversation on our journey towards becoming an Affirming Ministry. Our special guest that night will be Kai Solomon, a trans man who has aided other communities in exploring this process. Kai will be in dialogue with Michael Wilson as he shares his personal story and we discuss why a public expression of acceptance is of such value for a church that aspires to welcome all into their midst.
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, October 19, 2025.
As I say at the outset of the sermon this week, we have a funny relationship with prayer.
While we understand prayer to be an essential, and even indispensable, element of Christian life and spirituality, it can nonetheless be misunderstood, awkward, and neglected in our experience. Part of this no doubt stems from the ways prayer is thought of and used in culture. As the acclaimed Christian writer Anne Lamott says, there are basically two main prayers, “thank you, thank you, thank you and help me, help me, help me”. That is quite concise and fairly accurate. A common pattern of pray is to begin with expression of gratitude and then move into petitions asking for God’s intervention. I routinely pray asking God for peace, healing, and wellbeing for myself and others. We do likewise on Sunday mornings.
But when this is interpreted as putting God to the test, that’s where the trouble begins. Thinking of prayer as a way of getting stuff (whatever ‘stuff’ may look like) from God misses the point entirely. And yet, in TV, movies, and the popular imagination this is how prayer ‘works’. It is not uncommon for people who have distanced themselves from church and/or religious belief to claim that the uselessness of prayer is a contributing reason. What good is prayer if your requests are never answered goes the rationalization. And it doesn’t help when some claim their prayers are answered in ways that seem random and indiscriminate. God saved my house from the flood but destroyed my neighbour’s. That sort of thing. It is problematic at the least.
But what would be the ABCs of prayer if we took our understanding from the testimony of scripture and the example of Jesus. The first thing we would say is that indeed, prayer is indispensable. Jesus crosses water to get away from the crowds so that he can pray. He takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain so that they can pray. In his fateful hour he leads the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane in order to have a quiet place to pray. The Gospels depict a Jesus who needs to pray as surely as he needs to breathe. But, I would argue, not simply to say thank you or help me.
The next thing we may learn is that Jesus doesn’t pray in order to be seen doing so. Prayer is not piety on display or virtue signalling as if to impress others rather than to draw closer to God. In the examples above, Jesus retreats or literally ‘goes away’ in order to pray. In fact, in a parable in Luke, Jesus warns about the danger of boasting in prayer in the presence of other people. Prayer serves to deepen one’s relationship to the One to whom prayer is addressed.
Another thing we may take about prayer from the testimony of scripture and the example of Jesus is that prayer is surprisingly corporate or communal. In the Bible people pray together. They pray for others. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to give US this day OUR daily bread. It is a petition expressed in the plural. Worship is understood as corporate prayer, a community gathered. Not as a substitute for individual prayer but neither to its exclusion. There is blessing in praying alone as well as in the company of others.
Finally, if we take our cues from scripture and Jesus we begin to discern that prayer is seldom material. Rather, it is the ongoing conversation with One who travels with us and is our constant companion. Jesus teaches disciples to persevere in prayer and not lose heart because it is the praying itself that is the reward. Prayer is the conversation of the heart with the One who walks by our side, who never abandons, who hears every prayer no matter how it is offered, and who always answers with presence.
Yes, we have a funny relationship with prayer. It would improve by simply remembering that God isn’t waiting for us to get our prayer act together before granting us the answer we seek. Prayer is answered before it is uttered. And that answer is always that we are loved.
Grace and peace,
Michael
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- Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Luke 18:1-8
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