When I was in Western Samar a few years back, a student was asked by the pastor to do the closing prayer of the youth service. This guy was a new believer and had no idea on how to pray in public. As the whole congregation stood for the prayer, the guy came up the stage, closed his eyes, clasped his hands to a tight fist and said, “My God!”
Everybody thought he was going to have this fiery Pentecostal prayer that included a lot of shouting and loud Amens but a few minutes have passed and he hasn’t said any other word. He just stood there, sweating, rooted on the spot, totally embarrassed and speechless. Thankfully, the pastor came to the rescue and closed the service with a short prayer.
I’ve always thought this story was funny, well, until I did one to one discipleship with new believers and realized that when we ask them to pray even in a small group setting, we actually ask too much from them. Maybe we’ve just been to church for too long that we often forget prayer is not normal to most people. I once invited a person to church and the first thing he said to me was that it was okay for him to come as long as I didn’t ask him to say anything in public.
What he was really saying was that he didn’t want to be put in a spotlight. He just needed to get lost in the crowd and be left alone. But how do we teach people to pray? Jesus already answered that in Matthew 6 so I need not belabor the point here. My only tip is simply not to surprise them by singling them out from the group. The one to one discipleship is the perfect place to do it. Like a laboratory, that is the place for them to experiment with verbal prayers, spoken loud enough for you to hear and agree to.
I had this fresh experience last Sunday when a new guy who never prayed a public prayer all his life was partnered with me during prayer time. He nervously confided that he didn’t know what to say. I could have given him a three minute lecture on prayer but that didn’t seem right. My answer? This is how you should pray:
Lord, ganito kasi yun, kasi ganito… In Jesus’ name, Amen. (rough translation: Lord, you know what, it’s like this… In Jesus’ name, Amen)
That may not sound very correct, theologically speaking, but for us, it worked. The guy prayed a simple prayer, told the Lord his concerns and ended with a note of thanks to Jesus. I was a bit elated that I was able to help him but what followed next surprised me. Just out of the blue, he approached another guy from the group (whose mother was in the hospital) and prayed for him using the method I just taught him.