While there are many good things that
happen in prayer meetings, it is also where we sometimes pick up some bad habits about prayer.
I have heard thousands of
prayers in prayer meetings that are genuine, heart - felt, meaningful, conversations with God about Who He is, what He has done, and how we would like Him to help us live life and serve Him better.
In my experience, tongues only seems to be
used in prayer meetings when the person does not know what to pray, or because they want to appear super spiritual.
«Now, we didn't get the idea to start
#ThisFlag in the prayer meeting, but I'll tell you what, those prayer meetings we were having contributed immensely, so that when the opportunity presented itself quite accidentally, we felt as if God had opened the door that we had been asking him for.»
Exceptions are made for Native American churchgoers, who are allowed by law to use
peyote in prayer meetings, and members of a branch of a Brazilian - based church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who have won court battles for the right to use the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca in their religious rituals.
I have sometimes been
in prayer meetings where people clearly lose their train of thought, or they don't really know how to pray for the issue at hand, and so rather than pause, or stumble around for the right words, or simply pray wrongly and let God sort it out (He doesn't mind), the person instead starts to «speak in tongues,» thus trying to impress everybody with their spirituality.
For every prayer I have heard
in prayer meetings that fits one of these examples, I have hundreds of prayers in prayer meetings that are genuine, heart - felt, meaningful, conversations with God about Who He is, what He has done, and how we would like Him to help us live life and serve Him better.
It is
in prayer meetings where we learn that prayer must be said in a certain location, using certain terminology and language, and sitting, or standing, or kneeling in a certain posture.
It is
in prayer meetings that people learn the repetitive use of God's name and certain phrases and to use 1611 King James English.
In prayer meeting I either sit, stand.
In the prayer meetings I attend we quite often have the same burden put on us by God in what or who to pray for.