If you were in worship on Sunday, then you heard the story from Mark’s gospel about Jesus going away to a deserted place to pray. We explored how this story invites us to find ways in our daily lives to pray, to make ourselves unavailable to the world around us in order to make ourselves fully available to God. (We even dared to consider turning off our cell phones and email. Gasp!) We were all challenged by this story. Several of you leaving the sanctuary after worship told me that I had made you feel guilty. Well, believe me, the story hit me just as hard. I preached what I needed to hear!

After the sermon, John Hill led us in a time of prayer. But instead of speaking the Prayers of the People, he ushered us into three minutes of silence. Three minutes doesn’t sound like a long time. It’s hardly enough time to walk down to the mailbox and back. But three minutes of sitting and doing nothing? That’s challenging.

In fact, those three minutes were more challenging than I thought they would be. In my prayer time at home, I often spend time in silence. I try to practice clearing my mind and my heart in order to listen more attentively for God, and I’m getting more used to it, more comfortable with it. So, sitting in silence for three minutes in worship seemed like a no-brainer. (Pardon the pun. Get it? Clearing your mind? No-brainer?) Anyway, I thought the silence in worship would be comfortable and easy and refreshing.

But as soon as everything got quiet, I felt anxious. I was overcome with a feeling of uneasiness. I wanted it to be over. Then I started to worry, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way?” Over the course of the three minutes, I began to realize the source of my anxiety: time. I was worried about the service going long. It was communion Sunday, after all. And I was worried that people were getting restless. I was anxious that people would think we were wasting time by doing this, by “doing nothing.”

Eventually—and thank goodness we were given so much time to be silent—I offered all of that anxiety up to God. I realized that God was showing me some things about myself, far too many things to fit into one newsletter article. But I began to see that I carry these worries into worship with me, and they can get in the way of truly communing with God and with you.

Now, don’t get me wrong. All my thoughts and scattered feelings didn’t get resolved or figured out in three minutes. I got a glimpse, a brief revelation. But it was a gift, and it made me want to return again and again to the silence to see what else God might reveal.

The whole experience reminded me of a quote from Romano Guardini about contemplative prayer: “If at first we achieve no more than the understanding of how much we lack in inner unity, something will have been gained.”

I’m curious. If you were in worship on Sunday, what did you experience in those three minutes of silence? I would love to hear from you—in person, by email, by phone. Or, since you are here at our new website, you can comment below! If you feel led, share with me and with one another what this little taste of contemplative prayer was like for you. Maybe we can help each other move more deeply into the silence of our loving God.

This past Sunday we were one congregation worshiping in three different places: at Beersheba Springs, at Riverbend Maximum Security prison and at 508 Franklin Road. It was one of those days when I wanted to be in three places at once!

My family and I spent Friday and Saturday at Beersheba on the All-Church Retreat. We enjoyed the singing around the campfire, the spiritual learning with Sister Kathleen, the fun of the volleyball tournament, the beauty of hiking to the Stone Door and the wackiness of Mark Price’s “Maltese Flamingo” skit on Saturday night. By the time we went to bed on Saturday night, we were full of fun, food and fellowship.

On Sunday morning we got up early and headed back to Franklin for the 8:30 service at 508 Franklin Road. While it was hard to leave the beauty of the mountains and the joy of the fellowship on the retreat, I wanted to be here to support our preacher for the morning, David Ssebulime, and to worship with the part of our congregation that was gathered in this place. And what a blessing it was!

The focus of Sunday’s service was prayer. David inspired us to think of prayer as joyful and even fun. He urged us to undergird every part of our lives with prayer and to build every ministry of the church on prayer. Before we go out into the work in mission, he said, we should pray.

As I listened to him talk about the power of prayer, I remembered some things that Sister Kathleen had said on the retreat about “Wesley’s House.” John Wesley described the spiritual life as a house with three parts: the Porch of repentance and grace, the Door of faith and the House of holiness. I don’t have enough room on the page to delve into this rich image too deeply, but I found myself on Sunday morning thinking about the Porch of repentance and grace. The Porch is where we encounter God’s complete love for us, just as we are. It is where we remember that our primary identity is as God’s beloved. That’s where our relationship with God begins and returns again and again.

I think that prayer invites us all onto the Porch of God’s love. There are many reasons why we pray and many different ways to pray. We pray to ask God for help for others and ourselves. We pray to thank God. We pray to repent. We pray to seek God’s guidance. But sometimes it’s important to pray for no other reason than just to “sit on the Porch,” to rest in God’s love and to be reminded that we are beloved.

One of my struggles with prayer is always trying to accomplish something—to gain some insight or to achieve a feeling or to work toward results. But the more I practice prayer, the more I realize what David said on Sunday morning: “Prayer is communion with God.” Prayer is being with God, being loved by God, being shaped by God, being open to God, being totally dependent on God. This week, I invite you to spend some time sitting on the Porch with God, not doing or accomplishing anything. Just resting. As we seek together to deepen our prayer lives, there’s no better place to start.

Carol