The abrupt phrase “Desperate people pray” echoes in my mind and resonates in my heart. Why? We are desperate people living in desperate times. And we know from Scripture that God listens to the desperate cries of His children. We sense desperation in the world, our country, our communities, our families and in our very own lives.

At the beginning of Lent we issued a churchwide Call to Prayer for the forty days leading up to Resurrection Sunday. Every weekday at noon, the stained-glass Prayer Room was open for an hour of guided prayer using Scripture, silence and song. One participant said, “I honestly had never been in the prayer room before. It is so intimate and provides a sweet spot to have a conversation with God.”

In this beautiful sunlit room we focused on examining our lives by listening to God silently and then openly confessing our sin. The two practices of listening and confessing became the regimen of our hour together. We meditated on the Scripture passages of repentance modeled from David, Daniel, Ezra, Isaiah and Jeremiah. We looked at the steps of repentance: Take responsibility, feel regret, openly confess, intentionally resolve and pursue restoration. Together we experienced new rhythms of prayer, learning so much about God and ourselves. We bonded as a group as we confessed, cried and accepted forgiveness and healing. Over sixty different congregants (some of whom were there almost every day) participated, from young to old, staff, elders, long-time members and new folks, couples and singles, moms and grandpas. Jesus declared: “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” and we don’t take that as a suggestion but an imperative mandate and a sweet invitation from our loving Father.

-Dan Crane