When you attend other churches, sometimes you are introduced to doing things a little differently than you currently do. One of those things which I found different last month at the church we had switched with is that when the prayed for others, they only used their first name. At our church, we normally use the whole name. I found this odd. I thought maybe the HIPPA privacy laws had even reached the church. I felt strangely disconnected from the prayer. Certainly, I don’t know all the people we pray for, but at least John Doe seemed like a specific person. Who was Sam? Cindy? Frank? Or Rob?
A friend had once mentioned that he thought the whole concept of naming people in prayers was odd. Although he might know someone in need, he would hesitate to mention their name as perhaps they preferred to be private in their need. Certainly if that was their wish, perhaps that is a time to use just a first name, but the specificity of a whole name seems so powerful to me.
What do you think?
betcha haven’t
15 years ago
No comments:
Post a Comment