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Public Prayer

Public praying at Grace Haven wasn't much like prayer at other churches—the most memorable thing about it was lack of content. If someone was sick or had lost a job, you would almost never hear, "Please, Jesus, heal Mary" or "Please help Sam find work." No—almost all of what you would hear was "Thank you, Jesus" and "Praise you, Jesus." Not "Thank you, Jesus, that you will heal Mary" or "Praise you, Jesus, that Sam's future is in your hand"—just "Thank you, Jesus" and "Praise you, Jesus." I've seen people praying this way over a person who was desperately ill with cancer—"Praise you, Jesus"—and it seemed very odd, thanking Jesus that she was so sick. Eventually they did get around to asking that she would be healed, but they spent a lot of time thanking Jesus and praising him that she had gotten so ill.

There are a lot of things one might thank Jesus for: natural creation's beauty and the love of friends and family. There are a lot of things one might praise Jesus for too: his omniscience and power and mercy. But no—the prayers rarely got that specific. The words "Praise you, Jesus" or sometimes just "Praise you" were treated more like a mantra than an actual communication with a divine being. They were a way of getting into the spiritual mood for praying.

Two other oddities stand out in my memory when I think of prayer at GFC.

Grace Haven was very cautiously charismatic. One would occasionally hear someone speaking in tongues—perhaps twice a month, but it certainly wasn't common. However, early on the leadership became very enthusiastic about a practice they called "praying with one voice" (a total misnomer). Everyone in the room was supposed to pray aloud, with no attempt at praying in unison. The more chaotic the babble, the better. This was totally different from the Anglican idea of "Praying with one voice," which means that all the Anglican churches are using the prayer book and praying more or less the same thing on the same Sunday. It's also very different from the religious/political movement that wants the churches to pray for the government. No—the idea here was to generate an incoherent sea of sound, some of it in tongues and some of it simply "Praise you Jesus" repeated over and over. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 15:5-6 "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." I don't think he meant anything like this. In I Corinthians 14:23 and 40, he writes, "So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who are uninstructed or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds? … But everything must be done in a proper and orderly manner."

Another characteristic of group prayer was that it was very physical—sort of. People would wave their arms, clap, and sway. Occasionally, especially in the early days, someone would fall over, "slain in the Spirit." People would dance. Children would join hands and dance in a circle. The one thing we would not do was kneel, though every so often we were encouraged to "kneel in our spirit," which I take to mean that we were supposed to imagine that we were kneeling. Odd that in a church which encouraged praying people to act like high school cheerleaders, it was too embarrassing to get on our knees.

Grace Haven prayer was designed—above all—to be fun and an emotional release.

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  1. Rebecca AllenMay 29, 2021 at 12:17 PM

    I’ve actually talked with some of the people I grew up with about this exact topic, prior to you posting. There was enormous social pressure to pray out loud and do the appropriate physical gestures (arm waving, very restrained dancing in place, lowering your head while doing these things). If you weren’t comfortable behaving as though you were in the right kind of trance state, it stood out.

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