4 Life Hacks for How to Fail At the Pray for Me Campaign
Greetings Rock Creek Family and Friends
Small groups are beginning weekly but hopefully not weakly in homes. If you’re NOT part of one, but would like to be, let Pastor Corby know. He can help steer you to one of these formative, regular gatherings that we’re trusting to be a critical aspect of our community life together.
If you are not confident that you are single-handedly able to teach your children the Scriptures and the “doctrines of our Holy Religion” as we say at baptisms, you’ll be glad to know that there are supplemental, educational opportunities awaiting next Sunday, September 11 when Sunday School for all ages begins! 9:30 am at Durham. During a portion of the service at Lula Lake.
Lastly, as I move in an up-is-down and down-is-up direction, we wanted to make sure everyone was clear on what we are up to in the Pray for Me Campaign which has also begun.
We hope it will be just another thing to have to do and that nothing will really come of it!
So I have composed a little checklist, a sort of “life-hack” with ways to abysmally fail at the Pray for Me campaign.
“How to Fail at the Pray for Me Campaign.”
1) Do not notify your student nor her parents that you are her Prayer Champion. This is a critical omission to ensure. This will help our 6th-12th graders be unsure if anyone is actually praying for them. It will further guarantee that they will not get a chance to marvel, as one of our pre-teen 6th grade girls recently did with her father, by saying, ‘It’s so amazing that 3 adults are praying for me. It makes me feel really special.” We would like to avoid having students experience this warm regard from others, so please, DO NOT notify your student that he is the object of your prayers.
2) Should you have already violated the first tip, the second will be pivotal to our aspired failure as well. Assuming your student has learned of their value by your effort to communicate your intention to pray for him, you will want to make sure NEVER to communicate with him again. If you approach your student at church to ask her how you can pray for her, or send him an email indicating the same, you will simultaneously create the heinous situation where your student will be forming connections with other adults who follow Jesus, AND your prayers will take on a eerily personal quality where you may find yourself praying for actual matters in your student’s life. This is to be avoided like a cockroach.
3) Should points 1 and 2 escape your notice, and you err both by letting your student know you are their Prayer Champion, ANDby making it a point to keep up with your student so that your prayers wind up inviting Jesus into the actual minutes and moments of their lives, then it will, third of all, be imperative that YOU NOT ACTUALLY BOTHER PRAYING FOR YOUR STUDENT AT ALL. Just tell them you are praying for them, but don’t actually do it. We don’t want them getting cocky, feeling too adored, or having Jesus actually form faith in them. It would be a travesty if through your actually bothering to pray for them these students suddenly were growing in love, wisdom, faith, purity, favor, and in Jesus-like speech and conduct. This kind of action won’t be tolerated. Not at Rock Creek.
4) If you insist on defying suggestions 1-3, either out of rebellion or neglect of these serious life-hacks, then this here #4 must, simply must, be heeded at all costs. IF YOU PRAY, DO NOT EXPECT IT TO MATTER IN THE LIFE OF YOUR STUDENT IN ANY DISCERNIBLE WAY. Make sure that if you are going to fiddle at all with praying for your student whom you mistakenly told you were going to be devoted to praying for daily about actual matters that might occur on a Thursday afternoon 5th period class at school, that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT COMBINE YOUR SILLY PRAYING WITH EVEN A TEENY-TINY BIT OF EXPECTATION THAT GOD MIGHT INTERVENE IN HEALING, SAVING, OR REPLENISHING WAYS IN THE LIFE OF YOUR STUDENT!
Make sure when you pray that you only do it on the go, as an after thought, without thinking of the prayers you have offered ever again. Also, when a prayer seems answered, pay it no mind, either by giving it no mental attention, or by saying something clever like, “well, it would have happened any way.”
If you ignore these suggestions, our 6-12th graders may find themselves in the cumbersome and UNenviable position of having connected relationships with multiple adults in our midst. And those over-loved, over-valued kids in their tumultuous adolescent years, if you refuse to honor these hacks at failing at the Pray for Me Campaign, might just emerge as young men and women who are adored by and who adore Christ and are committed to being little Christs, living for fame of their Father and for the good of the world, all their days. This would be intolerable.
Glad you understand irony and sarcasm or at least hoping so,
Pastor Eric