I have been looking at some research into prayer patterns and practices in the United States, and everything seems to be on a downturn. Fewer people saying grace before meals, fewer people sharing prayer requests, a decrease in the amount of time in prayer and contemplation, less corporate spoken prayer, pastors and preachers confessing to little or no prayer apart from vocational responsibilities. What is going on? Why is prayer falling in popularity, participation, and presence?

Two fascinating theories have been raised. First, churches no longer teach people to pray. Mainline and evangelical churches in the United States assume that Christians pray, that they know how to pray, that they want to pray, and that they have a comprehensive understanding of the impact and value of prayer. Many church attendees, especially at independent, evangelical, meg-churches report that they cannot remember ever being encouraged to pray outside of church. In many places prayer time has been displaced by praise music and contemporary Christian musical performance. More people report an increase to listening to Christian music at the same time they report praying less.

Second, as our cultural understanding of prayer has shifted from prayer with to prayer for, more and more Christians are disillusioned that they are not receiving what they are praying for. Because God doesn’t do what we ask God to do, why bother? If we still get sick, fail exams, don’t get rich, and have to put up with those whom we dislike, why bother? If the world continues to implode regardless of what we pray, why bother? This cynicism from “on-demand” thinking is making more and more Christians feel like prayer is a waste of time. If prayer “doesn’t work,” why bother?

Okay, if the church is not teaching and encouraging individual and corporate prayer then it makes sense that fewer people truly understand the value of prayer, and that they use it for selfish and self-serving purposes. I once had a friend whose faith was badly shaken when he decided through prayer that he would never be ill again, then got a nasty head cold. An infantile understanding of prayer is nothing new. I also remember an essay by an imminent scientist who claimed that God’s existence was disproven once and for all when he prayed for his sister’s recovery from a terminal disease and she died anyway. Even well-educated people don’t get it.

And fundamentally, most modern-day Christians don’t fully comprehend prayer in all its many forms (petition, intercession, thanksgiving, adoration, contemplation, confession, etc.). Prayer is as much an orientation and relationship as it is a function and/or practice. There is a difference between prayer and prayers. Historically, Jewish and Christian prayer – both individual and corporate – was a centering in the presence of God, every bit as much a time for us to listen for the voice of God and the revealing of the Holy Spirit as a time for us to recite our laundry list to God. Prayer was/is a refueling, a refocusing, a reorientation, and a revisioning. Prayer is not our time to work on God but our time to allow God to work on us in an uninterrupted and immersive way. But we don’t seem to really want that. We want God to know what we want a whole lot more than we want to know what God wants.

Modern prayer has been almost completely divorced from discernment, discovery, and direction. We don’t understand prayer as a pathway to personal transformation. Prayers of praise, adoration and thanksgiving give way to petition and intercession, and were it not “forced” on us in worship, prayers of confession would be a thing of the past.

Prayer, at its best, is part of our identity as the body of Christ. Yes, we ask for things in prayer, but that is not the heart and soul of the prayer act. Jesus taught his followers to open with adoration and praise (Our Father in heaven, holy and revered is your name), moves to discernment and direction (your divine realm come on earth as in heaven), petition (give us today the bread we need), guidance and exhortation as well as forgiveness (forgive us for the things we do wrong as we forgive those who wrong us), protection and intercession (steer us away from temptation and evil), declaration and profession (for God’s place, power, and presence is what it’s all about). But note. This is our proclamation of God’s will for all of us together, not just us individually. This is a simple grounding prayer that reminds us who we are, who God is, and how we should live together. It is a Great Commandment prayer to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love neighbor as well as self.

God doesn’t need us to pray. God doesn’t want prayer for God’s benefit, but for our benefit. Not a worldly, material benefit, but our cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual benefit. Prayer offers an enabling function – that we might live together in such a way that God’s will and intention is evident and real on earth, here and now. When our prayer is geared toward living fully into God’s vision for humanity, it has the power to move mountains. When it is simply for a B+ on a paper, a winning lottery ticket, a favorite candidate to get elected, or for it not to rain on the family reunion – not so much.