Another thought on unceasing prayer.

Community.  If I have a prayer that I’ve been praying, and I’m to pray unceasingly, how do I do this?

Perhaps that’s where community comes in?  If I ask you to pray for me. Maybe you’ll be praying for me in a time where I cease.  Maybe I fell asleep, got caught up in the day to day mess, or maybe I am even just feeling distant from God.

What’s scary is we can throw out the “I’m praying for you.” so easily, on later to be dismissing it, forgetting to, or just not meaning it at all.  This is a pretty big deal.  Praying for someone and not, could be the difference between unceasing and ceasing.  I know that’s a stretch, but my belief is Jesus put a pretty huge focus on community for a reason.  I do believe, with all of my heart, we were called to community, not to talk the controversy, not to talk about the other person is doing wrong, but to support each other, and help each other grow unceasingly.  I believe a big part of this is prayer.

Unceasingly praying is not something that is easy.  It’s not something to take lightly.  It’s not something to dismiss as, “I’m just not good at prayer.” or, “He never listens anyway.”.  It’s something to work towards, unceasingly, until you are there.  And when you fall, work at it again, until you are there again.

Thoughts?

I can remember one time that I really experienced community.  I was working at the bar at the time, and was pretty far into the mix of my addiction days.  A good friend of mine, Paulie Arleo, took his life.  I don’ think to this day any of us really know why, but we do all have our opinions.  Paulie left behind his wife, and two dogs.  It was devastating to everyone.  He was one of the most liked people in the world.

When he passed away, there was definitely a sense of community.  People from all over Gwinnett County gathered at Kay’s house to remember Paulie.  A group of guys helped choose out new carpet for her room, to replace the empty spot that once held the blood from Paulie’s head.  Another group of guys patched the whole in the ceiling, where the bullet went, afterwards.  We stuck around.  I stayed at that house for several weeks after the fact.  Only leaving to go to work.

There was one night, a good friend of mine tried to ride his motorcycle drunk.  I picked him up over my shoulder, and wouldn’t let him.  While I carried him inside, another friend  removed the spark plugs so he couldn’t.  Eventually, he ended up passing out until our road trip the next day to Brison, to bury Paulie.

Thinking back on this, I get a little sad.  But I also see the way we all pulled together.  The way that a group of people came together to lift up the ones who were down.

Last night, I was thinking about this.  I was thinking about two things actually. first, I was thinking about how much I missed Paulie.  Second, I was thinking about how it’s easy to form community when things are bad.  When there is someone else around to focus on their life, it’s easy to pull together and talk about it.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could all pull together like that all of the time.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if 9 people showed up at my house, with just as much willingness to help.  Saying, “Man, we heard you were really struggling with _______.”  Fill in the blank.

Our pain and struggles are all hard.  They are all horrible things to try to overcome alone, but sometimes it takes a death, a cancer diagnosis, an addiction, or a nervous breakdown for us to show up.  The more I think about that the weirder it seems to me.  I don’t know what to think about that.  Maybe instead of thinking about it, we could call for a ‘change’.   Maybe there is something inside each and everyone of us that is looking to help out in that way.  Maybe there is a looming visit we’ve all been meaning to make.  Maybe, just maybe we all are eager to love our neighbors.

I don’t know if what I am saying makes sense, but it comes down to this question.  Why do we always seem to wait until disaster strikes to really reach out or offer community. (I mean, community outside of the once a week 10:30-1:00 time frame we alot for our brothers and sisters.) Why do we come around more when the focus can be taken completely off of us?  Can this change?  How?

So, most of you know, I’m not too terribly ‘skilled’ at code.  Some would say I’m subpar.

What I am good at is being hard headed, and not liking to lose.  When I am faced with losing, my brain stretches to unimaginable measures.  Tonight, that happened, and I was able to help a fellow blogger out with his site.

Most of you probably don’t know him, he’s just a small time blogger named Carlos Whitaker.

So, his comments were down for a while.  3 or 4 hours I think.  I helped, I solved the problem.  Once I solved the problem, I commented on his blog, and… the rest is in screenshot history.

If you can’t read that, I say, “Who’s your daddy?” and Los himself says, “Andy is.”

I’m not one to brag, but, I have fathered a man who is older than me, and far superior, (at least to technorati)

That’s pretty flippin sweet.  If this is your first time here, click around, leave comments, read away. There is some good stuff here somewhere.  If you find it, let me know!

I want to say, I love the blog community.  There are HUGE things happening in my life right now. (Mainly, I’m getting married in 3 days! but also, Andrea and I have joined a team of AMAZING bloggers over at http://www.caffeinatedfaith.com and we are doing huge things there.  More to come soon, including ways to help out charities of YOUR CHOICE.  (you’ll get something in return.)

This is truely a body of Christ, and that is what I strive to be.  The internet can be viewed as breeding grounds for a lot of negative things, and it makes my heart pump to be part of something that isn’t negative, and is actually a positive influence on peoples lives.

Can I get an AMEN?  How do you use the internet to form community?

What would you do if you had a group of bloggers that all had the same cause. A group of people who shared a similar vision, but didn’t quite know where to start? I have felt that way for a minute. In my short lived life in the “blogosphere” I have made some pretty close friends.

We all feel that we should be blogging for one soul purpose. So.. we did something. I asked everyone who I felt would like to be involved to be involved. And we decided to re-vamp http://www.caffeinatedfaith.com.

This site is even more awesome now, and currently has 4 or 5 bloggers adding to it. It’s pretty rad and we have even huger ideas coming to it. Andrea and I both write on there.

What we need most is your support. The main thing about that blog is we want it to be user focused. We want everyone to to interact. We want comments, conversation, everything. We think this is an important part of community, and that’s what Caffeinatedfaith.com is, a community. There is a spot for you to submit your story, and once a week we will add a featured story.

So if you love God. Are curious about God. Love Coffee, love community and everything in between. Go check it out. Comments are Mandatory appreciated.

Oh! and if you are really on board and want to give some link love.  Below are three pictures that you can put in your sidebar! Thanks!