God’s House of Prayer—XME (part 1 of 5)

• Posted on sdgale
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• on September 1, 2012
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God’s House of Prayer—Extreme Makeover Edition (part 1 of 5)

“My house will be a house of prayer for the nations.”  Those words of God recorded by Isaiah the prophet would be picked up by Jesus in each of the Synoptic Gospels, and alluded to by John in his Gospel account.  This identity and mission ascribed to the Temple were not lost with its destruction in 70 A. D.   They continue to describe and direct Christ’s church in our day.  In fact, we can say that the vision of every church must be to be a house of prayer.

Some will insist, “We already have a vision statement over which we have labored long and hard.”  Being a house of prayer does not supplant a church’s vision.  It doesn’t even supplement it.  Being a house of prayer overlays its vision, encasing it and compelling it at every point, in every way, at all times.  We might think of prayer being the drive train to the vehicle that is a church’s mission by which it pursues the vision God has laid before it, for the sake of His kingdom.

What is a house of prayer?  What does it look like in operation?  To start we must insist that being a house of prayer means more than having a weekly prayer meeting or including prayer as part of the Sunday worship service. It means more than prayer events in a church facility or a smattering of prayer activities.  These may be expressions of being a house of prayer but they are not constituent of it any more than opting for a CD player or GPS in a car. The vehicle can function without either. But Christ’s church cannot function properly and fruitfully apart from prayer.

Becoming a house of prayer involves inculcating a culture of prayer into a church’s mentality and mission, where prayer is necessary to life and function, the reflex of faith to all ministry present and prospective.

The vision of my local church is based on John 15, where Jesus gives us the metaphor of the Vine and the branches.  We summarize our vision this way: “to be a branch growing deeply in the Vine of Life, filling West Chester with the hope of life.”

When we superimpose God’s vision for us as a house of prayer, it helps us to understand that we will grow as a branch deeply rooted in Christ, filling the region for Christ only in the greenhouse of prayer at the superintendence of the divine Vinedresser, who not only cultivates and prunes but who also causes growth in depth and breadth.

The goal of this paper seeks to reinstate a divinely-mandated identity and function for the local church in pursuit of its kingdom calling.  We will explore the house of prayer concept, tracing it from its Old Testament genesis, through its reinforcement in Jesus’ day, to its outworking in the new covenant community of faith.  We will conclude with some specific ideas for what the local church as a bustling house of prayer looks like in practice.

NEXT: Part 2 of 5, “House of Prayer in the Old Testament”