The Fruitfulness of Morning Prayer: Philip Matherne
The Christian community at Wesley is growing…
Every weekday morning at 8 am, God gathers human souls together in the chapel at Wesley. When I first started attending Wesley in 2018-2019, I had no idea that the Christians there were gathering every morning to start their day with prayer. It wasn't until I became a missionary intern at the beginning of COVID that I myself started being gathered by God with those other souls to pray.
After God gathers us, we pray through the morning selections from the psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours. It goes like this: we are silent, we read through Psalm 95 in unison, and then we begin to responsively read through 4-5 different Psalms with one half of the chapel reading the first stanza, and the other half continuing with the next until we finish in unison with "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen." (As a cradle Southern Baptist, I was at first spooked to my very marrow by the liturgical and "Catholic" nature of the morning prayers.)
We continue on, hearing selections from the Old and New Testament until we get to a passage from the Gospels and become silent once more to listen for what God has to say to us. After our silence, we sing together to God the canticle (song) of Zechariah from Luke's Gospel. Up until this very moment, we've been listening to and speaking only God's words in Scripture. All of morning prayer, except for what comes next, is just praying only the Bible and being saturated in Scripture. Next, we pray our intercessions – as many as we would like. We pray for each other, we pray for Wesley, for the lost, sick, departed, suffering, despondent, and broken. We pray for our campus. We give thanks to God in our own words for his blessings and mercy. We pray for what we need.
These days we're praying specifically for:
Women leaders at Wesley.
Worship leaders, musicians, and worshippers for our community.
For God to provide Wesley with enough money to continue its abundant ministry.
Revival: in our community, in our individual lives, in Ruston.
Then we pray the Lord's Prayer and start our day.
From the introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours:
Jesus has commanded us to do as he did. On many occasions he said: "Pray," "ask," "seek," "in my name." He gave us a formula of prayer in what is known as the Lord's Prayer. He taught us that prayer is necessary, that it should be humble, vigilant, persevering, confident in the Father's goodness, single-minded, and in conformity with God's nature.
The apostles have handed on to us, scattered throughout their letters, many prayers, especially of praise and thanksgiving. They warn us that we must be "urgent and persevering" in prayer offered to God in the Holy Spirit through Christ. They tell us of its sure power in sanctifying and speak of the prayer of praise, of thanksgiving, of petitions, and of intercession on behalf of all.
The sanctification of human beings is accomplished, and worship offered to God, in The Liturgy of the Hours in an exchange or dialogue between God and human beings in which "God speaks to his people... and his people reply to him in song and prayer."
The excellence of Christian prayer lies in this: that it shares in the very love of the only-begotten Son for the Father and in that prayer which the Son put into words in his earthly life and which still continues unceasingly in the name of the whole human race and for its salvation, throughout the universal Church and in all its members.
Enough about how and why! Here's what God is doing at that morning prayer. He is gathering more and more souls each morning to satisfy, sanctify, and redeem them and the day. For two years, from 2019-2022, there were 6-7 interns on staff at morning prayer. In 2022-2023, there were two full-time staff at morning prayer: Camellia Jiles and Akin Bailey – two voices calling out to God. Last year, there were three of us: Camellia, Robert (our intern), and myself.
This year? This year there are usually 8-12 of us. Camellia and I are still there; we have two interns, and now there are 6-8 students! Not even just the ones on our Discipleship team. There are old alumni coming to pray! Freshmen, sophomores, and seniors. Our few voices have multiplied abundantly! Our community is hurting for God in a way I've never seen before. And God has answered our prayers. For two years we prayed for more women at Wesley, and God has answered! Read Peri's harvest post for one example. We have a worship band now! God has grown our community so much that it won't fit in the common room anymore, and we've moved back to the chapel! God has recently given us new partners to support our ministry even at a time when a third of our budget was announced to be disappearing this summer. (Please continue praying for us about that.)
God is reviving us individually and as a community. Our alumni group of former Wesley students is growing so large that we're meeting next week to decide what to do about it. We pray for you at morning prayer.
In short, Wesley is praying more than I've ever seen it pray before, and that has made all the difference in us. If you come to Wesley as a student or otherwise, you will learn how to pray every day, you will be prayed for, and your life will be changed because of those prayers. To be a faithful and flourishing community of Christians is to be a praying one. I've tried it both ways; this praying way is life-giving.
Because I learned to pray at Wesley in a way that taught me not just to speak to God but to listen, I hear God's voice in my life. I have been rescued from sin, from anxious self-management, and redeemed to fullness of life. If you pray every day, you will find a new life. It will happen to you, even if you're already a Christian. He will gather your soul. He will sanctify and redeem you and your day. Thank God.
Phil, our Associate Minister of Evangelism, served as an intern through the 2020-2022 school years here at LA Tech Wesley. He has a deep abounding love for Jesus, his friends, crawling through creeks, birds, and anything out of doors. We love him and are deeply grateful for and blessed by the way he pours himself out for the Body of Christ!