{"id":952,"date":"2019-11-12T01:43:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T01:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=952"},"modified":"2020-04-17T00:02:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T00:02:36","slug":"dont-christians-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/11\/dont-christians-pray.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Don’t Christians Pray More?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoSamuel
Samuel Martins<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prayer\u00a0is a spiritual discipline that most\u00a0Christians are familiar with but most of us are frustrated with at times. Why don’t Christians pray more?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b>We don\u2019t know how.<\/i><\/b><\/span> If you\u00a0didn’t grow up in church, or even if you did, praying can be incredibly intimidating, especially if you grew up in a formal church where the pastor prayed and he always threw in these $3 theological words like \u201cDearest thou-et Jehovah Jireh, I pontificate the ornate array of your trinitarian sanctification Holy Ghost something something.\u201d It can make it seem like you need a seminary Bible degree just to pray right.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b>We don\u2019t think we can.<\/i><\/b><\/span> Maybe you grew up in or near a religious environment where it was taught that not everyone could pray, that\u2019s what the priests are for. Or maybe you thought that your sins messed you up enough where God wouldn\u2019t hear your prayers anymore. I remember several times as a pastor, when I was at funerals, you\u2019d get people from every walk of life. There was usually some older gentlemen who\u2019d never darkened the door of the church in decades, but he knew the recently deceased and the whole prospect of death would rattle him and make him think. And over the years some of them would ask me to pray on their behalf. \u201cWhen you talk to the man upstairs, please mention my name<\/em>,\u201d or something to that effect, as if they couldn\u2019t talk to God on their own. In the minds of some people, there is no bat phone, there is no direct connection to God.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/b>We don\u2019t think it works.<\/i><\/b><\/span> Or we don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing it right, because whatever or however we\u2019re praying. It\u2019s not working. Your life isn\u2019t getting any easier, you didn\u2019t pass that test, your family member isn\u2019t well yet, you haven\u2019t won the lottery. You asked God for something and He didn\u2019t give you what you asked for, so does prayer even work?<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTION: What’s been your experience with prayer?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you’d like to connect and see more of the content I’m working on, be sure to like my church Facebook page<\/a>. You can also find me on social media: Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prayer\u00a0is a spiritual discipline that most\u00a0Christians are familiar with but most of us are frustrated with at times. Why don’t Christians pray more? We don\u2019t know how. If you\u00a0didn’t grow up in church, or even if you did, praying can be incredibly intimidating, especially if you grew up in a formal church where the pastor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42,15,65,96,91],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-next-steps","tag-christian","tag-church","tag-jesus","tag-pray","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Don't Christians Pray More? - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why is the spiritual discipline of prayer so familiar to so many Christians yet so frustrating?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2019\/11\/dont-christians-pray.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Don't Christians Pray More? 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