The Power of Prayer .....

I find so much hilarious stuff on some of these religious websites, I swear I should write a book. Here is today's winner: Dana King's "Thoughts of Worship" blog: http://www.thoughtsofworship.blogspot.com/

Mr. King is a Worhip Arts Minister at the Northeast Christian Church based in Kissimmee, Florida (which, by the way, takes online prayer requests and will soon be happy to accept your donations online as well) and this is an excerpt from his most recent post:

So now I am asking myself in what areas am I not expecting more from God? When I pray do I really believe that God hears my prayers? Do I expect him to do something about them... even though that might not be what I'm asking him to do? If I really believe in this thing called Christianity then I have to believe that our God is huge. Any expectation that I have of him and what he can really do is going to be way too small.

This has come up here at our church in the recent months. Justin and I prayed that God would bring 50 people to Connections. We would have been so excited to see a group of 50 our first night. God's expectations were higher though and we haven't seen a night with less than 50 people. The last two weeks the attendance has been 80 people pushing our church's attendance well over 350! We were not expecting enough from God.

We worry about our finances a lot too. While we need to be good stewards of our money do we really expect God to provide for our needs, or are we relying too much on our own ability to take care of ourselves? Notice I said needs and not wants. I don't think God is going to provide us with the best car and the biggest house but he'll get us by.

When I am trolling sites like this, I can't resist leaving comments and this is the one I left for Mr. King:

"If you are sincere in your belief that God intervenes in our lives through the power of prayer, I urge you to please shake yourself from your delusion. Tonight we could have 6 billion people pray for anything you want (let's suppose it's a simple request - to heal some poor ill child in Africa who is not otherwise expected to survive the night). All the prayers in the world won't help that child while perhaps some aggressive medical intervention might. If you believe that God might intervene to save the child, I am curious as to what she has against amputees? Check out the site http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ - it is quite thought provoking. If you accept that God won't intervene to save the child, why the hell would she (or he or it) give a rat's ass about how many people attend your Connections (whatever that is).

I think it is a crying shame that you are wasting your energy on a myth. After all, you are already an atheist with respect to Thor and Zeus and the thousands of other Gods aside from your Yahweh.

Whenever I come across a site like yours, I can't hesitate but wonder how you grapple with some fairly simple questions. Why do you put so much faith in a book when there are countless other holy books? Aren't you the least bit concerned about all the nastiness in the Bible and the fact that God seems to be a vain, nasty fellow? Don't you wonder why your God allows all the senseless suffering in the world? As noted above, aren't you concerned that the power of prayer is sterile, at least in experimental settings? Finally (my personal favorite), why don't I get to go to heaven if I lead a saintly life but choose not to accept Jesus as my personal saviour or, better yet, have never heard of the Bible?"