Church Starts in the Driveway

The enemy seems to work overtime on Sunday mornings. After my family arrived at church repeatedly in a state of discord and not ready to worship, I began to rethink our routine for getting to church.

We have a long drive to church - just over 30 minutes. I decided that it could be put to better use than 5 separate sets of earphones plugged into IPods, DVDs or radio channels with each of us in our own zone. We now listen to one worship channel corporately - no earphones and we always start the trip with a time of prayer for the church service.

Attending church and "getting something out of it" is as much about preparing for the time and bringing something to the gathering than sitting and receiving. Our prayers reflect that.

What do we pray?

• For the pastors, teachers and worship leaders to be anointed and speak, live out and sing God's message
• For those attending to get there - no excuses - and have hearts to hear God's Word
• For our hearts to be ready to hear God's message for us
• For each of us to see those in need who are attending and to reach out to them

This plan took tweaking to get it where it is today. Each family member prays out loud on the way to church but in the beginning the younger kids were clueless about what to pray. I had to model the prayers but they caught the enthusiasm.

I am careful not to "fix " their prayers. If they pray in their own ineloquent words for something I don't pray again for the same thing in correct theological terms. I know and they have learned that God hears our heart prayers, not our fancy words.

So if you feel like your enemy, the Devil, is prowling in your part of the country on Sunday mornings, consider this last piece of spiritual amour outlined in Ephesians 6.

...and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18