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2 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: Week 4
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This week's session was all about the hows and the whys of prayer. One of the main tools for Christianity, or indeed any other religion, would it be enough for me to communicate to God?
The minister was not there this week but there was a speaker to take up the challenge. He talked for around 15-20 minutes but the main points that I picked up were:
- 2/3 of people in the UK pray at least once a week and around 95% of people have admitted to praying at least once in their life.
- People tend to dismiss events happening after a successful prayer as coincidence
- The main purpose of prayer is to develop one's relationship with God and they only can access God via Jesus Christ.
- One reason why prayers are not answered is that people have sins which are not forgiven, and it is this sin that blocks us from God (which seems odd because surely all our sins are forgiven and removed by Jesus Christ's death, therefore there should be nothing blocking the way)
- Got is willing to answer your prayers and will happily give you what you need, all you need to do is ask.
I sat in the group listening to the speaker trying to absorb as much information as possible. However I got more value from the group discussion that came next.
Each member in my group sat in the usual circle and we all started to share our experiences with prayer. One woman shared her experience of a child that was born prematurely and her health was deteriorating. The mother prayed her hardest but nothing was happening. She got her friends and family to pray for the child but still nothing. Feeling she needed all the help she could get she asked many people from churches and eventual she had around 400 people praying for this child's good health. As soon as that happen the child made a miraculous recovery. With such a story surely there is a strong case of prayer being a real thing and that God does indeed answer prayers.
What if there was another explanation? And I'm not talking about coincidences because they don't exist.
What if it was all about attitude and looking things positively? The power of affirmation. I've touched upon this subject in the past and there are several more detailed websites in the Internet about this subject. The idea is that you think positively and eventually it appears that everything around you starts to go your way. Likewise if you constantly think negatively everything around you appears to be going badly. That is the power of the human mind and human attitude.
Why I've even had a prayer experience myself.
One time I went to a Christian Bible Study session with a Christian friend I had at the time. They discussed everyday life things but at the beginning and end they said a prayer out loud. It was kind of a improvised thing; one person would pray for a bit and then another person would pick up from where the last person left off. They were really getting into it. As I sat there with my eyes closed I could feel a kind of energy, a kind of excitement building up in the room. Eventually I felt really so good and excited that I felt compelled to join in. I rambled incoherently some sort of thanks to some sort of 'holy spirit'. Me, a non-believer doing a prayer. I shared my story to the other group members asking them if they had felt this before. One of them replied "Yes, that is the Holy Spirit".
Was it really the Holy Spirit flowing into me? Or was it something else? Could it been a case of mob mentality?
The best way to explain this would be with an idea. Imagine a music concert with hundred of people listening to the best musician, with everyone singing and dancing away. Or a riot breaking out for some reason and it absorbs more and more people into the destructive mass. There is that same kind of strong emotion, strong energy swirling around as there would be in a mass prayer. A person can easily get swept away and do all sorts. And it makes the person feel good too so they are more likely to repeat the activity. So the next time you get into a group activity and you start doing the same as everyone else, ask yourself is it because you're choosing to do it or is it because you got caught up in the moment?
This has been the most positive session I've had on the Alpha Course so far. The idea of prayer and getting results from them appears to be something that is documented outside of Christianity, whether it be religious or non-religious in origin, and it seems to produce results. Whatever the label is I am more convinced that there is something there. Some sort of energy to be used.
The question is what is the most efficient way of tapping into it?
Posted at: 21:25 PM
Your Thoughts
RORIDGE said on Saturday 17th of November 2007 at 04:40:11 PM
Interesting, religion is a mob mentality? :)
Surely coincidences do exist though?
If i go to basingstoke (which is out of my way) and I get a phone call from a friend and I said "Hey, im in basingstoke, ive never been there before, and its pretty cool" and they say "what the? Im in Baskingstoke too, and ive never been either, lets meet for coffee?"
surely that is a coincidence?