“Coming Out of the Closet” in the Marketplace: The Power of On-The-Spot Prayer

For the longest time, I like many people, had been a “closet” Christian in the Marketplace. I had my faith. I had a vibrant relationship with God. But the minute my faith began to show, I distinctly remember changing the subject—or downplaying it as soon as possible, to redirect the conversation.

I thought I had good grounds for doing so. Being a good King James Bible kind of guy in the early days of my Christianity, I could appeal to scriptures like this one:

Matthew 6:6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Other Scriptures were warning against being like the Pharisees, and making long prayers “for a shew” (Mark 12:40) the beautiful language of the King James would proclaim, or “for a pretense” (Luke 20:47). And if I wanted to be more state of the art, I could read the same warnings in more modern versions.

But truth be told, I was hiding behind a rather timid anti-evangelical bias lurking in my soul. You sometimes put yourself on the social chopping block by being too visible with your faith. People would think you were “too” religious, or fanatical. Some might even think the next step would be bringing the snakes out to handle, or worse.

But that all changed when I learned the power of “on-the-spot” prayer—at a restaurant before I ate, in a church setting when someone was in need, and yes, even in a public setting when I began to sense the moment was right.

The first time I tried it was in a church setting when a parishioner was truly in need and had an issue they greatly desired prayer for. I could have said the usual “I’ll pray for you,” and then guiltily remember a couple of days later “Oh yes, I need to pray for so and-so,” (yes, pastors are guilty of that too). But I was tired of forgetting to pray for people and trying to jam it in the assuage my guilt. How much more effective—and meaningful for the person needing the prayer—if I could pray for them on the spot? I did it, and it seemed to mean so much to the person I was speaking to.

Then (gulp) came the big moment when I dared to pray at a restaurant before eating my food at the table—and even mustering up the courage to ask the waitress or waiter if they’d like to join in (and they often did, and responded when I asked them if they needed some kind of special prayer).

I attended a Billy Graham evangelical teaching workshop and learned an amazing trick shortly thereafter. Rather than ask a person while staring into their eyes if they’d be willing to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, I simply asked them “May I pray for you?” In the prayer, asked them if they believed in Jesus and would be willing to say He was their Lord and Savior. And guess what? They did! And I discovered it was way easier to say all those cool evangelical things while we both had our eyes closed than it was to try to stammer them while I was staring them in the face.

Finally, when I made the transition from being pulpit pastor to marketplace chaplain, I learned the power of having conversations that count at the water cooler, or in all sorts of relaxed public settings in the marketplace. And when a spiritual need came up (like it did with two physicians at a notable local hospital today), I simply asked “May I pray for you?” And shock of shock, they both said “Yes!”

We live in a world in which a human can declare himself to be a cat (of any gender), we can dye our hair with colors that make us look like we just stepped off the set of “The Hunger Games,” or pierce and tattoo our bodies in such detail that we’re bound to look like raisins when our bodies age, wrinkle, pucker as they will with age.

What would happen if we were willing to take prayer “out of the prayer closet” and into the marketplace?

How beautiful might we look at any age if we’re willing to show the world we are people of prayer who are willing to share that power with others on the spot?

They might want to learn how to tap into that power themselves. And even want you to teach them that was well!

We’ll learn about what to teach them in the next few installments of this years “Smiling Icon” Marketplace Blog.