Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Prayer Warriors? Prayer for Dummies? Reading Group? Adult Ed Series?

RantWoman is seasoning a leading to see whether others in her Meeting would be interested in some kind of Prayer for Dummies exercise. RantWoman is unclear with whom it would make sense to season this leading. RantWoman would be thrilled to know if others are interested and want to help develop the project.

RantWoman also warns potential collaborators of RantWoman's need for materials in accessible formats without, for now,  further specifying what that means.

RantWoman has been thinking a lot about prayer, as part of daily practice, in terms of different language different Friends use, and also invoked around RantWoman when there is nothing obvious or feasible one is clear to do. . Also, awhile ago some people from another part of RantWoman's life decided to make a conference call prayer group. RantWoman greatly esteems the gifts of the person led to convene the group. RantWoman was already aware that prayer would likely include a lot of language different from RantWoman's experience. And RantWoman's reaction to news that the group was forming: "I MUST pray with these people."

So now RantWoman's email streams are full of phrases like "Praise the Lord," (and the no-longer practicing nurse who helped walk someone through a severe hypoglycemic episode) and "prayer warriors." IN practice, the conference calls occur at a time that is not great for RantWoman. RantWoman also pays selective attention to a couple of the prayer warriors partly because they post a lot of supplications in multiple social media streams. In terms of the whole group except for diffuse generalized prayer of good wishes / vigorous holding in the Light , RantWoman is probably doing what she can on the prayer front; RantWoman also offers light and prayer requests via email though the requests get edited in what RantWoman considers unhelpful ways as they are forwarded to the group..

In any case, to help think more about the Prayer for dummies idea, RantWoman secured permission to post the telephone group's guidelines here, just as one possible point of departure. Friends who are curious and want more info about this specific group, please leave a comment.


PRAYER GROUP GUIDELINES

Hello, and welcome to our prayer group conference calls!  We meet every Sunday at 4 PM Pacific Time, 6 PM Central Time.  Although this call is supposed to be informal, and we’re supposed to have fun, there are some basic guidelines that need to be followed.  Trust me, this is not going to be painfull!  The last thing that we want people to do is feel uncomfortable.  That’s not what we want at all.  Here are the three basic guidelines:

1.       Respect.  Please respect everybody that’s on the call and their prayer requests or praise reports.  Once we start praying, we need to be respectful to those that are praying.  One way to do that is by muting your line by pressing the star key and the number 6.  You’ll hear the voice say, “This line is now muted.”  This will prevent excess noise coming in on the call.  When you’d like to pray, unmute your line the same way, and you’ll hear the voice say, “This line is now unmuted.”  This also includes being respectfull to how someone prays.  Some individuals may cry, speak in tongues, or however the Spirit leads them to pray.  By respecting others and respecting the Lord, this will be a good thing.  Please, when you give your praise report and/or prayer requests, keep it at 1 to two minutes.  None of us wants to be on the phone for a long time!

2.       Confidentiality.  Anything that we discuss on this call is kept in strictest confidence, and cannot be shared with anyone accept for the person that made the prayer request.  Please do not share any of what we talk about on Social Media, text messages, emails, or phone calls

3.       Don’t be judgmental.  You never know what people are going through, and we know that there are people that are loosing hope.  It’s our job as believers to not judge them based on what they request.  For example, if someone makes a prayer request for a medical need, what we don’t wan to hear is something like, “I’m having trouble with my legs.  But that stupid, idiot doctor doesn’t want to see me for it!”  This is not the time or place for name calling, swearing, or anything that could cause harassment or that could easily offend somebody.  We want this to be a positive experience for all!. 

4.       This is not the place or time to discuss politics!  That’s not what our prayer group is about.  We can certainly pray for the president of the United States and for leaders of our country, but please, no negativity!  As was previously mentioned, this is a call to encourage each other, not to be discouraged.

The Prayer List:
When a prayer request is sent ...via email, phone call, text, or any other way, then I will add that person to the list.  When a new person gets added, I’ll send it to the group.  This way, we can pray for that person or situation at our own time and not just when we get together.   Let me or the moderator know if that person needs to be taken off.  For example, if someone’s passed away.  Also, if someone or even if you have a request and you don’t want us to know the full details of that request, then I’ll put it on the list as an unspoken request.  For example, “Malissa’s unspoken request.”  If you or someone has a prayer request, they can send it to me via email at (email address)  Or, they can call me at [   ].  Please be aware that you do not have to commit to being on the call every single Sunday.  Just come on whenever it’s convenient for you to be on the group.  You don’t have to stay on the entire time, you can come and go as you wish.  If we’re in the middle of praying, and you have to leave for whatever reason, you don’t need to announce that you are hanging up.  Just go ahead, and we’ll talk when you come back on again.  Once we take prayer requests and praise reports, then I will ask if there’s anyone that needs to leave early, then I will let that person start off the prayer, everyone else can follow, and I or whomever is moderating will close.  There’s no time limit for this conferencing service, so afterward, you can visit with each other for as long as you’d like!  One more thing to add.  Whenever we have new people on the call, please make them feel welcome!!!  Let’s have a good time praising the Lord, and interceding on other’s behalf!!!

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