Lamar Howell's Weblog

I went to an “all-church prayer meeting” at the end of the year. We didn’t pray though. We didn’t have to, because we had prayer representatives. We listened and nodded. Representative pray-ers.

When I was in high school we had an all-white student council, even though around 10 percent of our population was black.  The students complained and we ended up having a black representative on the student council and a black cheerleader.

But it wasn’t an easy seat to obtain that seat. They had to hold a sit-down in the student commons before we would listen, but listen we did. Henceforth, we had black representatives and black girls on the cheerleading squad.

But when she cheered, the black students all cheered; the white students all cheered too.

So, if we have to have a prayer representative, let them lead us in our cheering. Don’t let them cheer alone.

Anytime we let a representative pray for us, we are not really praying. It is called “thinking” if we are only listening and assenting.

Let’s lift our voices and pray together to God. We represent our selves, bare our own hearts, shed our own tears if it comes to that.

We aren’t gathered to listen to one person pray. We are gathered for God to hear all of us praying. Then, no one will be self conscious.

Huddle up, and all — cheer!