16,12,11

I sat around a round table with serval men in a home last night. We gathered for a prayer meeting. Also seated around that table with us were two 16 year olds, a 12 year old and one 11 year old. The prayers those young guys prayed moved me deeply.

One prayed for a sick man in our church. Another prayed for missionaries. They prayed for the church and other churches in our area. They prayed for our country. Mixed in with the seasoned prayers of those men my heart rejoiced to be in such a meeting.

Not very often you can go to a prayer meeting and see youngsters there. It is even more rare to attend a meeting where young men are present and are bold enough to pray out loud right along with the other men. That is a sign of some spiritual maturity.

That's what we're after. Seeing young men and women develop into spiritually mature followers of Jesus. We are not just trying to entertain and fill them fun without faith. We are not trying to show that they are totally isolated from the rest of the church. Sure we can do age appropriate things with them, but the whole church should come together to pray. We can come together to worship and to serve others.

I asked a question recently, "Who taught you to pray?" The answers were, a mother, father, aunt, grandmother. It's our privilege as adults to teach the younger generation how to pray. In order to do that successfully we must know how to pray ourselves.

People do not learn how to pray by reading about prayer anymore than a person learns to hit a baseball by reading a book on hitting. You have to actual do it. The baseball player has to spend time in the batting cages perfecting the swing. The person praying must learn to pray by practicing prayer privately and corporately.

Corporate prayer meetings are becoming extinct. Especially among the younger generations. In two days students will be encouraged to gather around their flag pole at school or a courthouse to pray. I remember when that movement started close to 30 years ago. It was designed to be students gathering to pray. A simple concept. Youth pastors got their hands on it. They added bands, worship songs, speakers, and hand picked students to go up before the group and pray while the others listened. Typically donuts or some other type of breakfast food was offered to gather a crowd.

I question how much praying really takes place. Youth pastors added to the hype by calling into Christian radio stations promoting how many attended their See You At The Pole event. The more numbers the bigger the success everyone touted. What about the effectiveness of the praying? Isn't that the measure of success in praying. That God hears and answers the prayers for His glory.

Only what turned out to be a movement to get students to pray seems to be sidetracked. Prayer is not the main thing anymore. In theory you would think having millions of students gathering to pray for their schools in September around the world each year would produce some radical results. Eery imaginable social evil still plagues schools. Suicide. Sexual Immorality. Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse. Bullying. Sexual orientation issues. Homosexuality. Things get even more bleak when you look behind closed doors in homes. Evil spreads. The darkness permeates. Wickedness prevails. I recently asked a young high school student what it was like in her school. She replied, "Just the opposite of Christian."

It is going to take more than one prayer meeting at a flag pole event each year to stem the tide of darkness sweeping over our land like a fog. It is going to take many more prayer meetings in small gatherings where young men and women learn how to combat the forces of darkness in spiritual warfare. I am thankful for those four young men. May God multiply them around this county and country.