PRAYER IN PUBLIC SETTINGS
By Mike Chancellor,
Pastor, Crescent Heights, Abilene

I have been reading with interest the reaction to the recent court ruling about praying before sports events.  For many, the refusal to allow student-led prayers before sporting events is another sign of Americas steady march to moral bankruptcy.

I want to make a few observations about this recent chapter in the ongoing legal struggle regarding prayer in our national public life.

When I think of American today, I find myself thinking of several things.  I think of my friends who are missionaries in East Asia.  I remember their introduction to god selves.  In many Eastern cultures, religion of about worshiping a plurality  of gods.  When our missionaries come into those cultures, nationals may express a willingness to put Jesus up there on the shelf with the rest of the household gods they worship.  Jesus becomes one of many.  In America today, I believe Jesus is one of many gods we hold close to our hearts.  As long as He remains one of many, most folks are accepting of the Christian faith.

I also think about the first century in which Jesus moved and taught.  I think about His words as He stood in a corrupt temple, full of folks who had lost their way. It is written, He said to them., my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a "den of robbers." (Matthew 21:13) Jesus was speaking in the midst of a corrupt society, governed by corrupt officials, teetering on the brink of disaster.  His focus was not on the lack of prayer in the school house but the lack of meaningful prayer in the church house.

I am also reminded of the great moves of God in the short history of this country.  Those moves of God have swept across regions, reset the standard of morality and integrity, renewed the church and revived the people of God.  Where did it begin?   Not in the school house or the athletic fields, but revival most often began in the church house.

 The battle for the soul of America is not being lost in the school house.  It is being lost in the church house.  Listen to the admonition and the promise of the Lord.  If my people, who are called my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn form their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  (II Chronicles 7:14)

Life-changing prayer always begins at the church house then spreads to the family house, then to the school house and finally to the state house.  The resetting of mortal standards must always be done that way.  Whenever we start at the state house to reset the moral compass of

September 1999