Have any of you ever thought to yourself, "I'd just like to live a normal Christian life. I don't need to be a missionary to another country. I don't need to be tortured or die for my faith like Christians do in other places. I just want to be normal."

Many years ago when I was pastoring in another community our youth group was composed of mostly unchurched kids. Their participation in our youth ministry was their first exposure to Christianity. One of the things we used to do was go door to door through the neighborhood around the church. We'd knock on the door and say, "We're from X Church and are going around praying for people. How can we pray for you today?" I taught the kids that praying for people was a thing "normal Christians" did. They didn't know any different, so they took my word for it. You should have heard them pray! I don't remember anyone ever turning us away.

Do you take praying for people to be part of the normal Christian life? I'm sure most of you do. We have a prayer list in the bulletin each week and here in the newsletter each month. We send out a longer prayer list by email every week. We also have a church directory app that you can put on your phone. While the directory might seem to be only for getting contact information for people
and seeing what they look like, it can also be a prayer list. Since it's organized alphabetically, you can do one letter a day. If you start on a Monday, you can pray for all the families whose names
start with A that day, then those that start with B on Tuesday, and so on.

But that's different than going door to door, isn't it? It's also way easier than praying out loud with other people. Most of our praying will probably not be out loud with other people. Most of our
prayer time (and the Bible says, you may have heard, "Pray without ceasing") will be pouring our heart out to God and listening for what God says.

There are times however, where it is entirely normal to pray out loud with other people. How do you become the kind of person who can do such a thing?

The starting place is staying attentive to God's guidance. God is always at work in the lives of people, drawing them to himself. You can start off each day by praying, "Lord, bring people across
my path who I can bless. Show me how to love them. I want to be part of your work in drawing them to you." God likes to answer that kind of prayer. Sometimes those people he brings across
your path will need prayer – and it'll bless them for you to pray out loud with them then and
there.

Joining God in what he's doing, whether through prayer or otherwise, brings great joy. And it's part of the normal Christian life.

1 Corinthians 15:58
Rev. Richard Heyduck