Updated Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
The following is a humorous column. Please do not take it seriously. Thank you.
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My dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of several of the Cornell Navs’ finest:
CC + TC
TW + OP
ET + DM
MK + VT
These promising young people have fallen prey to an institution. An institution whose goals and purposes are noble, yet whose effects on the modern man have been rather homogenizing.
I am speaking of course, of the institution of marriage. Continue reading ‘A Eulogy to Singleness’
There are few meetings I dread more than voluble, emotional, spontaneous and conversational prayer meetings.
Adam S. McHugh, “Introverts in the Church”
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I have a hard time sitting through prayer meetings. It can get boring. I know a deacon isn’t supposed to say these kinds of things, but I’d prefer to be the kind who says what everyone else is thinking.
Let’s compare prayer meetings to other kinds: if you go to a regular meeting, people talk for an hour, and then they’re done because they get bored and have work to do. Prayer meetings often drag on – especially since it is “spiritual”
People start praying, giving vague and dull praises, start asking for healing for random things like their aunt’s gallbladder, start quoting scripture: “Oh Lord I remember in Isaiah where it says…” and they quote a whole chapter (a little tedious for me).
Then you’ve got the people who preach another sermon through their prayer. They’re not even talking to God, they’re talking to you. God is infinitely patient, but the rest of us are not.
And then you get the people who use “filler words”: “Father God, I love you Father God, and I praise you Father God, you are _ Father God…and blah blah blah Father God…” Please, follow John Mayer on this one and say what you mean to say, and cut out all the excess. No one is going to interrupt you if you pause for two seconds to collect your thoughts. I promise.
I believe that sometimes unstructured prayer meetings are fine. But there is a lot to be said for trying a more structured approach (people tend to pay more attention when they know something has a very close end point).
I’m gonna keep quoting McHugh: “So try different formats for prayer meetings…Employ listening prayer and breath prayer or other creative and ancient approaches.”
Exactly. More structure. More depth. More meaning. That’s heading in the right direction.
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What are your thoughts? Do you enjoy unstructured prayer meetings?
Have you experienced other formats that you find compelling? Should I turn in my deacon hat for posting heresy?
Hit the comment button above and let me know!
*Every week I send a goofy email out to an e-list for my Christian fellowship. Since some of the stuff in them is somewhat funny, I thought it would be worth posting them on here. Note that names have been changed to preserve privacy.
Table Of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Insanity of the Academy
III. This isn’t a Rickroll Trick – Honest!
IV. Addendum
I. Introduction
I was chillin with a couple of my boys at AfterNavs when one of them mentioned that he deleted the last message I sent because the subject line explicitly instructed him NOT to read it. Following that logic I decided to take my newfound power and use it to my advantage. So remember people, each fifty dollars is ten miles more on a Spring Break trip to DisneyLand 
On that note: Hi. I’m jPothen, I’m a Senior, and I like to write funny emails. My sense of humor is a little quirky, but you’ll get used to it eventually, I promise.
