Scene from a fundamentalist church near you during any given prayer meeting…
As the notes of the second hymn die away, the pastor asks “Do we have any prayer requests this evening?”
Up pops the hand of Sister Pearl in the second row.
“Since my sister couldn’t get a cardiopulmonary bypass they had to perform an off-pump MIDCAB. The surgeon performed an alternative incision — I believe it was a a left anterior thoracotomy. So her left internal mammary artery was dissected from the left chest wall and stabilizer device was placed on her heart to provide support of the left anterior descending artery as the heart continues to beat. Then the left internal mammary artery was sutured to the left anterior descending artery to bypass the blockage”
“Miss Pearl’s sister” murmurs the pastors making a note on his list. “Who else?”
“Please pray for me.” pipes up brother Tom on the front row. “I have a visit with my proctologist tomorrow and he’s probably going to be prescribing me more of that stimulant laxative he gave me two weeks ago. That stuff sure does a number on me. Hopefully this straightens out my bowel movements because they have have been just terribly irregular of late.”
“Remember Tom” intones the pastor scratching another note while avoiding eye contact with Tom. “Anyone else?”
“I believe that my neighbor has a social disease” pipes up Sister Sue-Ellen sitting in the middle halfway back. “It wouldn’t surprise me the way she carries on…”
“Sue-Ellen’s neighbor” the pastor hastily interjects. “Ok, let’s go ahead and pray…”
The only certain things are death, taxes, and an amazingly detailed litany of medical prayer requests on Wednesday night.
Not funny. How can you mock ppl’s prayers?! I guess hate will do that to you. You are sad.
JTR: Not funny. How can you mock ppl’s blog posts? I guess hate will do that to you. You are sad.
Not to be forgotten: gossip in the form of prayer requests. Love those.
I’ve heard these called “organ recitals.” You know, my heart ain’t right, my liver quivers, and my spleen is green.
I once heard them referred to as “organ recitals.”
philip jenkins made an observation that the reason many western christians have so much trouble with faith is because of western, modern medicine. not that western, modern medicine isn’t good; he reminds us we should be grateful for it. but, he remarks, its hard to believe that God works in our lives when we’ve relegated him to just our salvation.
Oh man, i remember this. My grandpartens church still does this…and im pretty sure im on that list under “social disease”…every wednesday…and sunday night. I think i need prayer for dealing with others peoples prayers that involve me, hahahaha.
I was in a church once and they were asking prayer for this girl who ran off and got married, like it was a bad thing. The pastor goes, and I quote, “From what I understand, they went away and eloped, so let’s pray for that family.” I couldn’t help but give a face.
But, prayer requests are the most depressing part of the service. I always wished they’d have a blessings part of the service, just to counteract it all.
There’s this old guy at my church, bless his heart, who feels the need to share his prayer requests in detail during his turn to pray in the “open prayer” session. Like he’s talking to us and not God, ‘cuz God already knows that a big, hairy black widow spider crawled across his hand and he’s on blood thinner which would make the poison act that much faster; he’s been on this blood thinner for a long time, and some of these people don’t know but last month in a choir practice I started bleeding and had to get the nurse-who’s-a-2nd-soprano-on-the-first-pew-of-the-choir-loft to clean up his bloody spill, so it’s a good thing the spider left him alone, Amen.