Those Dull Old Lutheran Prayers and Pray-ers

In Lebanon, Tennessee, not far from the city where I abide, an area where car racing and Nascar is king, you open the races with prayer.  Never mind that Nascar was born of moonshine running and that the first drivers were experts at evading the law, snaking their way through the back roads at breakneck speeds, and bringing home the fruit of the still.  Anyway, at a recent race one Baptist brother decided to forgo the dull old prayers of the past and put some zip into praying up the cars and drivers before the race.

Joe Nelms of Family Baptist Church gave the invocation at Saturday night’s Nationwide race at Nashville Speedway. Late in the prayer, Nelms channeled his inner Ricky Bobby when he borrowed a line from the film “Talladega Nights”.

“Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife tonight, Lisa, and my two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call, ‘The Little E's,'" he said, while also thanking automotive companies, like Goodyear and Sunoco, Reuters reported.  You can read about it all here.

Brother Joe would probably give the old General Prayer from TLH a big yawn as well as the great collects and prayers of the church.  Some Lutheran folks do as well.  In fact I had somebody tell me once that I when I prayed I sounded like a prayerbook.  I thought it was a compliment.  Turned out it was not.  You may argue with me but I think that before you can pray on your own, you need to learn how to prayer with the saints before you.  I believe that collects teach us how to pray because they also teach us about the God to whom we pray and the promises which are the foundation of our prayers.  It is neither our blessings nor our wants that best shape our prayers but the promises of God.  We are moved to prayer best not by the woes and failures of our mortal lives but by the promises of God.  When we do not see clearly or have trouble trusting in those promises, the Spirit intercedes with prayers formed of our groans and sighs.  Brother Joe would certainly disagree, but I believe that if you want to improve your prayer life, you can begin by praying the ancient collects and prayers of the Church, waling in the foot steps of the great pray-ers of old.