I had the privilege of praying for the persecuted church the other day at a local Baptist church. I look forward to the next time the local churches gather and pray for our brothers and sisters in the faith who face much greater hardships than we often care to admit. Here are some things I learned from my experience.

1.) Planning precedes preference. I planned for several weeks to go to this prayer meeting, and I told another church member I would join her in this prayer. This happened to be the same week I baptized my daughter and had family over to our house until 5:30 pm. It started at 6 pm. I was exhausted. The weeks leading up to the gathering, I had been “all about it,” but when the time came, I had very little left in the tank. It was only because I had planned and told another I would be there, that my exhaustion didn’t get the best of me. And of course, when I got to the church, the energy level immediately rose.

2.) Don’t judge a Jew by his yamaka. I got there and I saw a number of yamakas. I assumed they were old school Jewish folks, which sometimes can be a safe assumption. And in the mind of some church folks, they really are no different than Christians, except they get a pass on the whole needing Jesus thing. But at the end of the prayer time, much to my surprise, I found out they were Messianic Jews. Very cool. Jews who believe Jesus was/is actually the Messiah.

3.) Gathering to pray for the persecuted church doesn’t mean you will pray for the persecuted church. As soon as we broke into 4-5 person groups, we began with some personal and corporate repentance. But then we were supposed to pray for each nation or group of nations mentioned from the front. Each nation had a little blurb on what is happening there and what needs they have. But what I continued to hear from several folks was a prayer for “our nation.” Each time the prayers cycled around, it quickly turned into how bad America was and how we needed to return or repent or whatever. It’s amazing how quickly we can gather to pray for those whose Persecution is physical and violent, and then pray for the persecution we face in our nation. Some people here are persecuted more than others, and I get that. But, I went home and relaxed with my family. Many people whom we were praying for had no home anymore, or perhaps no family. That’s different. They were why we gathered. It is hard to pray for others. It really is, and that’s why having some sort of a prayer plan, schedule, or praying through the Lord’s Prayer can be so helpful.

4.) Persecution means we’re in the end times. At least, according to one prayer I heard (but didn’t say the “Prayer Hmmmm”), “we know” we are in the end times now. Well I would agree to some extent. We are in the “latter days,” but we’ve been in them since Jesus rose. And there has been persecution since Jesus rose (since it was there even before he died-John the Baptist lost his head), and unfortunately could be until Jesus comes back. But that doesn’t mean he’s coming back tomorrow. Or the next day or year or many years after that. Revelation was written to strengthen people going through persecution, not for people who aren’t persecuted to predict when that special day will come.

5.) It’s good to pray with those different than you. People were definitely different, and definitely had different theologies, which they clearly expressed in prayer. And as I thought to critique a woman who talked about getting to reign a 1000 years, I just realized (as I was writing this) that my theology of the church, Revelation, covenant, God’s Sovereignty, grace certainly came through in my prayers as well.  So we can let each other pray consistently with his/her theology and know we are praying to the One, the only One, who can and will clarify our theologies in time. When faith becomes sight. Until then, its good to pray with other believers of a different persuasion and not to hold arrogantly to our positions. Nor to act like those differences don’t exist as though we could simply pray without theological biases. That’s impossible, for we can’t help but pray our theology. Yet, on the bright side, such awareness gives us a real opportunity to love each other.