Pentecostals Urge Prolonged Prayer at Sunday Services
Many churches in America do not give ample time to pray during their Sunday services. And a lot of churchgoers do not believe God answers prayer, said a Pentecostal pastor.
"It would be hard, I think, to prove ... that you could have a service, a New Testament-based service, without having times of prayer," said Jim Cymbala, who leads Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, at the Assemblies of God Prayer Summit this week.
Cymbala was referring to evangelical churches on a general note. A Southern Baptist leader had recently raised the concern of churches and the lack of authentic worship. Jim Shaddix, senior pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Denver, Colo., recently told Southern Baptists that older generations of churchgoers and more traditional Christians a lot of times are emotionless in worship and list prayer requests but do not actually pray during service.
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And when such churches try to organize a prayer meeting, hardly anybody comes, Cymbala pointed out. It just ends up being a "warmed over Sunday service."
Cymbala, whose church now draws 2,000 people to its prayer meetings, suggests prolonged times of prayer during Sunday services. Allotted time to prayer could break the barrier to the reluctance many people have toward prayer, he indicated.
For those who do not believe or have given up on the belief that God answers prayer, John Lindell, who leads James River Assembly in Ozark, Mo., told believers to wait.
When one stops anticipating the promise of the Lord and tries to solve problems alone, mistakes are made, he told the 1,400 Pentecostals at the summit's concluding session on Wednesday. He further emphasized God's ability to supernaturally strengthen those who wait on Him.
Churches today, however, have lost patience.
"The problem with the church today is we want God to push us through a fast-food window. 'I don't have time God, so don't delay long, don't make me wait long,'" Thomas E. Trask, general superintendent for the Assemblies of God, said earlier at the summit.
Lindell gave summit attendants a chance to be patient as he invited people to come forward to the altar to "wait" on God in prayer.
Throughout the three days of the Assemblies of God Prayer Summit, attendants frequently answered to calls of prayer at the altar.
"We didn't call a prayer summit just to teach about prayer," said Trask. "We're going to have a time of prayer."
