Prayer Meeting

I think one of the most successful things about my ministry at North Chittenden Wesleyan Church has very little to do with North Chittenden Wesleyan Church. Every Wednesday I leave work a little early to go home and scarf down a quick meal while Lucy cheerfully fills a backpack with coloring books and crayons. Then she and I drive down the hill to Pittsford, sometimes in silence, but mostly in backseat chatter.
At the Village Manor Ruth is always standing in the foyer watching for us and she is always relieved to see that I have brought Lucy with me. She lets us in and the three of us go into the community room where five or six other octogenarian women are sitting around the table in their customary seats, Bibles out in front, hands folded demurely in laps. Lucy, all curls and effervescence, empties the contents of her backpack on the table and graciously receives their admiration.
Then, if you can believe it, we spend a half an hour studying Scripture. And we really do. And we sing a hymn and then we pray, and when we have prayed and open up our eyes we blink and sigh and feel as though we have emerged from something it was good to be immersed in.
And not one of these women attend the church. One of them, however, did attend the church in her youth for a time before moving and becoming affiliated with the Wesleyan Church in Forestdale. And this wonderful saint is actually one of the keys to the success of the prayer meeting. Not because she has wonderful insight into Scripture, although she does, but more because she is hard of hearing.
I have decided that every prayer meeting and Bible study should include someone who is nearly deaf, because someone hard of hearing helps you to edit yourself. I don't say things at prayer meeting unless it seems like they're worth shouting, and when it comes to Scripture and the things of faith that seems about right. If they are worth saying at all, then shout, and if you can't bring yourself to shout, then be silent.