The Prayer-Meeting by G. B. Thompson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · May 30, 1912

The Prayer-Meeting

By G. B. Thompson

THE prayer-meeting is a reliable thermometer of the spirituality of the church. A cold, poorly attended prayer-meeting marks a cold church. A well-attended, enthusiastic prayer-meeting indicates a spiritual church.

The prayer-meeting is intended to be the people's meeting, and it is not designed that the leader and perhaps one or two others shall occupy the greater part of the time. A good meeting has frequently been spoiled by the leader's taking the most of the time, and then telling the rest of the congregation to be brief, as only a few minutes of time were left. This is a serious blunder under ordinary circumstances.

A noted clergyman has made the following excellent observations concerning a prayer-meeting, which I copy and pass along, hoping the hints will not fall on stony ground:—

"It commonly requires the presence of several sensible persons to make a good prayer-meeting; but it is in the power of one or two weak-headed and troublesome persons to mar it most wretchedly. Certain persons of this sort will come into a meeting as moths fly into a candle. They stick there like the moths; but, instead of being scorched to death, they nearly extinguish the meeting. Now, it is the imperative duty of the pastor or the conductor of the service to deal with such brethren most frankly. If self-conceit makes the brother so troublesome, then that self-conceit should be kindly rebuked. If he offend ignorantly, then his ignorance should be kindly corrected. The man who has not enough sense or conscience to take a wise hint gratefully will never be of any value to a devotional meeting. Some good people mar a meeting without intending to. For example, one fluent brother gets to monopolizing the time by the inordinate frequency or the inordinate length of his utterances. . . .

"A prayer-meeting is sometimes marred by aimlessness, both in the addresses to the Lord and to one another. Brother A talks about faith, and Brother B about the pestilence at Memphis, and Brother C about—no one can exactly tell what. One method of correcting this aimless diffuseness, and of compacting the service, is to select and announce beforehand some profitable topic for discussion. This may be even selected by the leader and announced on the previous Sabbath. Then everybody has some definite object to aim at in his remarks. Then the whole service hangs together like a fleece of wool, and there is spiritual instruction afforded, as well as a kindling of devotional feeling by a study of God's truth. If a company of Christians will carefully discuss such a practical topic as 'Obeying Conscience,' or such a passage as the twenty-third psalm, or the parable of the wheat and the tares, they can not but be instructed and strengthened. Food for devotion will be furnished, and both the praying and the speaking will be directed 'at a mark.' Of course, this arrangement need not hoop a meeting as with iron, or forbid any one from presenting some special request or some matter of immediate interest that lies near his heart.

"The moment that any system of management kills the freedom of the family gathering at the mercy-seat, then the system should be abated. A cast-iron rigidity may be as fatal to the meeting as aimless verbiage. If the Spirit of God is present with great power, there is no danger from either quarter. Wherefore the most effectual cure for an invalid prayer-meeting is to open the lips and hearts in fervent supplication for the incoming of the Holy Spirit. There may be cases in which a meeting is seriously disturbed by the unwelcome utterances of persons whose character is more than doubtful, and who desire to gain a cheap reputation for piety by taking part in prayer or exhortations. Such transgressors should be frankly informed that they would better remain silent until they are ready to open their lips in honest confession. Mr. Moody pithily says that 'a man who pays fifty cents on the dollar when he could pay one hundred cents on the dollar had better keep still.'

"To confess a flagrant wrong-doing in a social meeting is no easy thing; but I once heard a man do it in a way that not only thrilled the assembly, but brought a rich blessing on his own soul and reinstated him in the position which he had lost. Sincere confession to God or to our fellow men fills a prayer-room with an odor as sweet as that of the broken alabaster box in the house of Simon the leper. But there is a species of wordy and windy parading of one's own 'awful guiltiness,' which only nauseates the auditors and can not impose upon God. It is a terrible thing to tell lies in the name of the Lord. Whatever else be the faults of our prayer services, let them be delivered from pious fraud and solemn falsehood.

"Brevity should be rigorously enforced in the prayer-meeting, except in those rare cases where an individual is speaking so evidently under the inspiration of the Divine Wisdom that it would be a sin to apply the gag-law. Five minutes is commonly long enough for an address, and three minutes for a prayer. The model for our petitions which our Lord has taught us, does not consume half a minute; and even that wonderful intercessory prayer which he offered for his followers on the night of his betrayal, occupied just twenty-six sentences. We ministers too often transgress in monopolizing time at our people's devotional meetings. It is their meeting. We have an ample opportunity for Bible exposition on the Sabbath. If the social meeting has broken down under the weight of long, heavy preachments, it is time it was mended. An energetic leader can do this by a prompt tap of a bell or a kind word of monition, or by calling on some 'full' brother to offer a word of prayer."

Takoma Park, D. C.