Calvin (05/29/23)

5:25

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Matthew Henry (05/29/23)

5:25

Pray for one another.  Paul didn’t count it beneath him that his readers should pray for him, nor to seek their prayers.  “Ministers stand in need of their people’s prayers.”  Pray more for them and your benefit from them would prove more bountiful.

Adam Clarke (05/29/23)

5:25

Even the apostles, inspired of the Holy Spirit, knew the necessity of prayer support.  “God requires that his people should pray for his ministers.”  “If the grace and Spirit of Christ be not worth the most earnest prayers which a man can offer, they, and the heaven to which they lead, are not worth having.”

Ironside (05/29/23)

5:25

Paul seeks prayer not for personal gain, but as Christ’s servant, that he might teach God’s Word.  “Those who stand in places of public testimony need the prayers of God’s people.”  Such teachers are likely to fall, and so, need prayer to maintain them in consistent testimony of God’s glory.

Barnes' Notes (05/29/23)

5:25

It is not unusual for Paul to request prayer.  He was no different.  He had his passions, his temptations.  And he faced significant opposition and peril.  “A minister, surrounded as he is by temptations, is in great danger if he has not the prayers of his people.”  Remove these, and his pursuit of his duties will likely become formal and frigid, fruitless for preacher and parishioner alike.

Wycliffe (05/29/23)

5:25

Paul reveals a dependence on his brothers in Christ.  (Ro 15:30 – I urge you by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit:  Strive together with me in prayer to God for me.  Eph 6:19 – Pray on my behalf, that I may be given what to speak when I open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.  Col 4:3-4 – Pray for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak the mystery of Christ, for which I have been imprisoned; in order that I may make it clear in the way I should.  2Th 3:1-2 – Pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, just as with you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and evil men.  For not all have faith.)

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (05/29/23)

5:25

The connection may not include the ‘also’ that some manuscripts supply, but the connection to his prayer for them is evident simply by proximity.  Such requests for prayer are common with Paul, at least when addressing those whose prayers he had reason to expect would be forthcoming.  We don’t, for example, find such request in 1Corinthians or Galatians.

New Thoughts: (05/30/23-06/01/23)

I will begin my notes with a bit of repeating from my early notes.  The big thing I would have us attend to is this:  When Paul says, ‘pray for us’, its not with the same sense that we often say it.  I find that quite often, when we make such request it is almost a matter of exasperation.  We face some difficulty at home or at work.  Perhaps there is some relationship we need to take steps to repair, and we know it’s probably going to be unpleasant, or at least uncomfortable.  We have, in general, some sense of dread, not necessarily overwhelming, crippling dread, but that more petty sort of dread that simply concerns having to do something we know we must but we’d really rather not.  Brother, pray for me.  It’s almost a laugh line.  And it’s often an appeal for sympathy and commiseration.  What it isn’t, is a prayer with ministry focus.  And that is precisely where I think Paul’s request for prayer, though it uses a familiar phraseology, is actually quite different in nature.

Paul is not looking for commiseration, certainly.  He has had nothing to say, actually, as to his present circumstance.  He is not asking for help getting over Athens, or strength to deal with Corinth.  He’s not even asking particularly for himself.  It’s not, ‘pray for me’, it’s pray for us.  He’s not seeking provision from his previous converts.  He’s not looking for anything but ministry fidelity to the mission.  Pray that this ministry shall meet with success as it has with you, and pray that the success of this ministry where we are at present shall be as God measures success, not as man, not as we might.

Let me work that point just a bit.  God’s measure of success, I think we must surely realize, is not found in numbers.  Over and over again we see it.  We were reading through a portion of Genesis last week for our men’s group, covering the record of Abraham’s calling and receiving of the covenant promises of God.  Along the way we read of Lot being caught up in the battle between the Canaanite kings down on the plains where he had taken up residence in Sodom, and kings coming from the east, from Shinar, Babylonia, and such.  And they had, it would seem, a pretty sizable army, these eastern kings, sufficiently powerful to overcome the giants, the Rephaim, who made up a part of the local forces.  So, a pretty strong army has come, beat the locals, and taken off their treasures and their subjects, including Lot.  And in rides Abraham to the rescue.  What?  A wandering, nomadic shepherd is going to be of use here?  Yes, he, and a whole 380 men that he has rousted up from amongst his camp.  That would tend to indicate that it was not family.  These were slaves and hired hands.  But he called them to action, and they came, and this tiny, untrained battalion did what a coalition of kings, with the armies at their disposal could not.  He not only overtook the eastern group, but he defeated them and took back the spoils they had gained.  It’s not numbers.

We could go to Judges and see it play out again, even to the point of sending the bulk of the gathered forces home at one point, lest they come to think that their military victory had to do with their superior strength of numbers.  Oh, no.  There’s too many of you.  Let’s thin it out.  Or, come to the dawn of the Apostolic age.  Jesus had built up a pretty sizeable following, and even after His death and resurrection, when we find the remnant of that following gathered in Jerusalem, there are yet some 120 gathered there in the upper room.  Well, it’s a lot less than the multitudes.  Mind you, it’s a lot less fickle, too.  Yet, we don’t hear about the Church being established on the works of this 120.  It is established on the backs of twelve, thirteen men, hand-picked by Christ personally to take on the arduous mission of establishing a church.  And not just some local body, some new sect of Judaism to compete with the rest in Israel.  No.  This was to be taken out to the world, and one could be forgiven for getting the impression that the bulk of that work came down to two men, Peter and Paul.  We know the others were also involved, but we have, apart from John, very little to go on as to what their involvement was.  So, no.  It’s not about numbers.

As we come to contemplate the success of ministry in our own day, we do well to bear that in mind.  Yes, we tend to our attendance records, and we look to our balance sheets, because we wish to be good stewards of that which God is entrusting into our care.  But if this becomes our primary focus, we are losing.  We are becoming too much of the world to be of value to the world.  Pray for us.  Pray that we might remain focused upon that which God has given us to do – our particular part in this work of proclaiming the Gospel and preparing God’s people.  It may well be that our part is going to be more along the lines of, say, Alpheus, than that of Peter, or even Thomas.  It may be that our part is to be this small outpost, faithfully training up our members to live godly in this world.  It may be that we need to really turn our gifts toward establishing a next generation that has real basis for real faith that they have really thought through and found reason to believe.  It may be that we are to be more missionally minded, taking the Word forth to places it has not reached, or where reception has been poor.  Pray for us.

Pray that we might in fact be seeking out that which God has for us to do.  Pray that we might stay clear of becoming shaped by the world and thereby rendered little more than a retro country club.  Pray that we, the people of the Church, might be seriously prayerful in our consideration of who God would have tending to the oversight of this work.  And then, having set these overseers in place, pray for them, that they might truly lay hold of God’s leading and might truly shepherd us both in their own prayerful concern for us, and in the leadership and direction they put forward.  Do they have a vision to cast?  I’m honestly not too concerned whether they do or not.  That feels too much like marketing talk to me.  Have they fashioned us a lovely mission statement?   Who cares?  Again, that’s modern business fashion.  What it has to do with a church properly functioning under the guidance of the Holy Spirit I couldn’t say.  And what use a mission statement is, if it is little more than one more thing to recite?  Less than nothing.  It is said.  It is forgotten.  We move on.

Pray for us.  Pray that we might be faithful to that which God is giving us to do in His kingdom.  And let us be clear on this:  It’s not that His mission needs prayerful warring on its behalf.  I’ve been in times and places where prayer had that feel to it, that we were warring in the heavenlies, as some are wont to say.  Perhaps.  But honestly, God doesn’t need us to be taking up the task of defending Him.  Seriously?  All-powerful, all-knowing, all-sufficient God needing us?  God doesn’t need.  Period.  We, on the other hand, have significant need of His defending us.  But even there, though it often occupies our prayer requests, it seems to me a bit misdirected.  We know God.  We know He cares for those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.  We know He is with us, lo, even to the end of the age.  What’s the problem?  More to the point, is this really appropriate prayer according to His will and in the full authority of His name?

Yes, I’m quite aware of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, how He sought for some other avenue that might get the job done.  But even here, I don’t see much of calling on God to defend.  There is quite a bit of praying for strength to see the job through.  And there is quite a bit of struggling to keep the human will submitted to God’s will.  “Nevertheless, Father, Thy will, not mine.”  But it remains very much on mission.  The prayer is for God’s purpose to succeed, and for God’s Servant to be faithful to his task.

Here is model prayer for us.  Is it not reflective of the familiar instruction of the Lord’s Prayer?  “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.  Supply us for the day’s need.  Forgive us for the day’s failures.”  Even so, Lord, come.  This is where prayer needs to be, is it not?

And so, we read this, ‘pray for us’, and we cannot help but recognize that Paul’s concern isn’t for himself.  It isn’t for his team in their individual needs.  It is for the work of the Gospel.  If there is self in it at all, it is that these men would remain true to their task, that they would proclaim this Gospel with the boldness it deserves, come what may, that they would not only speak the word, but live it.  I don’t think we fully appreciate just how hard that is.  We who are in a role of being laity can, if we choose, sort of switch our godliness on and off.  I don’t say that’s wise or good.  I just observe that it’s reality.  We can let our guard down now and again without having any significant impact on the ministry at large.  It’s certainly not going to be without impact, and that impact will not be strictly personal.  It will not be a victimless crime when we decide to behave ungodly, however short the outburst.

But ministers, for better or for worse, are on more permanent display.  For one, we make it their profession, their livelihood, and as such, it is something they are laboring at, in one fashion or another, as a daily employment.  As such, they are far more before the watching world as they labor, even if it’s only the eyes of a few parishioners for the most part.  How would you hold up under such constant scrutiny?  How would your testimony bear up if your brothers and sisters were your immediate coworkers every day?  I suspect we’d find ourselves challenged.  It’s one thing to go off on a mission trip, and be together on this special event for a week or so.  For one, we know it’s but for a week or so.  For another, there’s that general excitement of the event, and the unfamiliarity.  But let that stretch to months and years.  There’s a reason we resonate with the adage that familiarity breeds contempt.  We get to knowing too much about one another.  And knowing too much, we can easily lose sight of what God is doing in each of us, in spite of each of us.

So, it is not entirely surprising, I guess, that so many of the commentaries find in this simple request a strong reminder of the minister’s need for prayer.  And in their assessments, they are quite right.  Ironside, for example, observes that teachers are likely to fall at some juncture.  Pastors are likely to fall.  They are not supermen.  They are men with all the same foibles and proclivities as the rest of us.  Arguably, they face far greater challenges than we do, and more often.  I think we get the idea that those who form the professional ministry are somehow insulated from the sorts of garbage we may face at the workplace.  They are not.  The church staff is not immunized against office politics.  After all, the church staff is drawn from the same humanity as we find in our employments.  So, yes, they are at risk.  We are all at risk, at all times, in our human weakness.  But the thing is, when a pastor or an elder falls, the ripples are greater.  He was supposed to be our example to follow!  If he can’t hack it, how are we supposed to do so?  Or worse, if God can’t keep His employees on the up and up, why should we give Him any attention?  Why bother with this Christianity business at all?  It’s clearly powerless to help anything.

Do you wonder that the world by and large reaches such conclusions?  They have no real experience of Christianity, certainly not of Christ.  They have the reports, amplified and repeated, of every fallen ‘hero’ of the faith.  They will not hear about repentance and restoration if that in fact comes to pass.  I think, given the tendencies of modern practice, they have no comprehension of even the possibility of repentance and restoration.  How hard it must be to live as a post-modernist!  One slip and, if word gets out, you’re finished.  There’s no way out, no escape from condemnation.  So, to hear that there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus is to hear nonsense sounds.  Who are you trying to kid?  There’s nothing but condemnation.  Look around!  We shall have to start farther back.  Because if one thing is certain, it is that these poor lost souls really need to come to the place where they can receive this incredible news and own it.  How great a relief for the unmoored post-modernist to discover that indeed there is a safe harbor in Christ, a place where restoration is possible, a place where forgiveness reigns rather than condemnation.

We can blame the developments of philosophy, the impact of things all the way back in the Renaissance age, or the debased, drug-fueled impact of the sixties.  We can blame Socialism, or politics, or technology.  We have all manner of scapegoats to choose from for why things have gotten to this point.  But I think we must also recognize that those sundry pastors who have made a name for themselves, become stars of stage and television, well known to a watching world, and then have fallen, and fallen hard, and fallen with plentiful publicity, have had serious impact on the propensity of a watching world to give any thought to receiving what they’re peddling.

I can look back to the days when I was pretty faithful to go see Frank Zappa when he was in town.  And certainly, especially in later years, there was plenty in his repertoire that spoke to this phenomena.  “He’s got twenty million in his heavenly bank account.”  Yeah, there was plenty to see on the landscape that would give the impression that this was really what Christianity was all about – just another scam; more snake oil.  “Jesus thinks you’re a jerk.”  There were plenty of others.  At the time you had televangelists of long-standing being caught in lifestyles of sin.  You could add the litany of priests outed for using their position in pursuit of sex crimes.  And every time something like this comes up, it gets broadcast far and wide.  The fall of a minister, however temporary it may be, and however godly the man more generally, simply causes greater damage.  It’s inevitably the case.

So, pray for them.  Matthew Henry writes, “Ministers stand in need of their people’s prayers.”  Who else is going to do it?  Barnes observes, “A minister, surrounded as he is by temptations, is in great danger if he has not the prayers of his people.”  Both of these men proceed to note the personal value to the parishioner in undertaking to pray for them.  And they are quite right.  A minister upheld by the prayers of his people will be of far more benefit to his people than otherwise.  A minister who does not have the support of his people’s prayers will, rather like we observed earlier in the chapter in regard to honor (1Th 5:12-13), tend to become formal and frigid in his ministrations.  He will do his duty, but without relish.  And as his delight in ministry is diminished, so his ministry becomes a fruitless, empty work – fruitless for him, fruitless for you.

All that being true, yet I would observe that there is a nobler purpose for heeding this call to uphold our pastors in prayer.  And that nobler purpose concerns their being preserved from falling.  Here is kingdom cause in our prayer, for as I have been observing, a pastor’s fall has greater impact.  Even when a parishioner falls into sin and comes to require the undertaking of church discipline, it has its ripples.  After all, parishioners aren’t so isolated from one another.  We each have our circle of acquaintances and closer friendships within the church.  And there will be those from among our friends who, while lacking true knowledge of whatever the situation may be, will still conclude that they know this person better than the elders who are called to apply church discipline to the matter.  There will always be those who are quite thoroughly convinced that the leadership misjudged this case.  And so often, leadership is not at liberty to so thoroughly discuss the matter as to make clear that their judgment was in fact spot on.  Pray for them.

But when a pastor falls?  Even if he is but a humble, local pastor, the ripples spread wider.  It can poison the local church if it’s not tended to properly.  I have watched two churches now, being part of them, which have had to deal with just such a situation, and even when it’s been handled well, I have to say the impact on these churches has been devastating.  It is not the same ministry it used to be.  Now, we can argue, and with strong likelihood of being correct, that part of the problem was the ministry being a bit too much about the pastor, to near to being a cult of personality rather than a kingdom-focused, Christ-centered business.  We can also argue, with equally strong likelihood of being correct, that there was a failure of the people to be in prayer for their pastors and elders.  There was that assumption that slides in all but unnoticed, that those who have been given charge must be advanced beyond such things.  I mean, these are the Spirit-led, Spirit-filled shepherds and under-shepherds that God has put in place.  Surely, we can count on them to remain steadfast.  But our faith is not to be in any man.  Our faith is in Christ – Christ alone.  And as such, our prayers ought to be unto Him, to uphold those He has set in positions of influence such that they would withstand the temptations that surround them, and so better serve the purposes of God.

I would stress, however, that while such prayers for our leaders will certainly prove to have benefit for ourselves, that personal benefit should by no means be our focus or our motivation.  The Christian is intended to be outwardly focused at least as much as he is inwardly.  Yes, as we have seen, there is the call upon us to be about our sanctification.  But as we have also seen, that work, while it is to involve our active participation, is really a work of God in us, so even that has its outward focus, as we look to God to see what He is doing in us in order that we may come along side Him in that work.  So, too, the prayer for our ministers, our leadership.  We pray for them with a primary concern for what it is God is doing in and through them.  If He has set them as directors over this body, then we surely desire that their direction reflect His will.  And if we trust God, that He does in fact direct His appointed servants, then we should adjoin prayers for that direction He has given, that the ministry entrusted to this local body may be both faithful to His leading, and effective in His power.  We should pray, as well, that we might ourselves be found willingly submitted to such godly leadership, not merely in theory, but in practice; accepting that their guidance does in fact reflect God’s purposes and therefore setting ourselves to obey that guidance.

This is assuredly to our benefit in matters of church discipline, should such become necessary in our case.  How much better for us if we will heed the godly, loving correction of our elders.  How much more likely that we shall instead stiffen our necks.  But one course leads to restoration and growth.  The other leads to an increase of sin, which can never be a good thing.

Let me stress, just to maintain balance, that in no way am I advising blindly following the leaders of the local church without question.  Our forebears had good sense when they determined to follow no man farther than he follows Jesus, and nowhere is that more critical than when it comes to those who would direct the church.  “But I was following their direction!” will be of no use as an alibi when examined by the Lord and asked why you became a willing participant in some sinful act even while claiming to be His.  And worse, in such a circumstance, the likelihood is high that you did so claiming to be doing His will.  Think of those about whom Jesus warned His followers.  “They will throw you out of the synagogue.  They will kill you thinking that they are doing service to God” (Jn 16:2).  The religious leaders in Jerusalem, at least some of them, thought themselves to be maintaining the purity of God’s people in seeing Christ arrested and crucified.  No doubt, for many it was more a political act, a matter of preserving their own power and position, or maybe concern about riling up the Romans.  But clearly, as in the case of pre-conversion Saul, there were those who thought they were doing God’s work by stamping out this upstart sect of Christ followers.  No other God but Yahweh!

We can get to be of much the same ferociously misdirected zeal when it comes to upholding our denominational particulars, or our most favored points of doctrine.  And we can also find ourselves being led into grievous error by those who happen to speak well of those favorite points, though they err greatly on more critical matters.  We don’t follow blindly any more than we come to faith blindly.  We are called to be active congregants, not just hearing the words spoken, nor just doing what we’re told, but truly listening, and truly measuring what has been said against the clear, revealed will of God in Scripture.  And then, when the testing has proven the message worthy of our acceptance, we both accept and submit.  That’s the proper life of the Church.  Pray, listen, weigh, accept, act.  And really, that first step of prayer could be construed as rightly continuing throughout every other step in that flow.

Again, my evening readings of Francis Schaeffer have their influence on me, and I find I want a picture of that idea.  Of course, I’m in a word processor, which is not the most conducive medium for pictures, but let’s see what we can do.

<------------------Pray ---------------->
Listen -> Test -> Accept -> Act

Yes, unlikely to translate well, but I’ll leave it there.  Pray always.  Pray for us.  Pray for God’s kingdom work to be done in and through us.  Pray that your leadership might be true to His leadership, might be men truly led of the Spirit and concerned for God’s glory.  Pray that you might be one truly led of the Spirit and concerned for God’s glory.  Pray that you, in your stubborn, self-centered person, might be empowered to submit to such leading, and might find God so working in you that you are in fact both willing to work, and empowered to act in glad submission to such godly leaders.

Notice what is not in that sort of prayer.  Gone are the concerns for present circumstance.  Gone are prayers that life might be more comfortable, more convenient.  It’s not that such desires are somehow evil at the root.  There is nothing inherently wrong with desiring that we might know times of comfort.  There is nothing inherently evil about preferring that life might prove convenient.  If there were, then we must suppose God Himself to be evil, as He is the giver of these good gifts.  The issue is not with comfort and convenience.  The issue is with us raising up personal comfort and convenience as idols we serve instead of serving God.  They lead us to make of God a genie of sorts in our thinking.  And that leads to a mindset that is ready to abandon God and godliness the moment it conflicts with our priorities.  You didn’t bless me.  I’m out.  I expected better of You, God.  Far be it from us to sink into such thinking!  And I expect that we who are truly sons of our Father in heaven never get to the point of thinking such things explicitly.  But I also know that it often lurks behind our more explicit declarations.  It shows in our prayers, even as we seek to appear more pious in how we make our points.  We sound good, but the inward man is still trying to clamber up on the throne and give God His marching orders.  Watch out!  Watch yourself.  Catch that tendency when it begins to rise up in you, for it will.  The old man, as we so often say, is still there, still noising about in you, seeking his old position of power.  But he mustn’t have it.  You are a new creation, and that throne belongs neither to the old man or the new.  It belongs to God.

As concerns our corporate life, we have cause to be careful, thoughtful as to what we are becoming as a body.  Too many churches become satisfied to be more commune than communion.  They become matters of social status and little more.  They are a place we get together with friends, hang out for a bit, maybe get together for an occasional event.  Yes, we have to listen to the sermon.  It’s kind of like those free vacations, but you have to sit through the sales pitch, right?  It’s the price you pay.  But if that’s what it’s become, if that’s all it is, then it is no longer a church, and should really rename itself in some fashion to avoid confusion.  If that’s all it is to you, then you should really cease to call yourself a Christian, for you have clearly not given yourself to Christ.  Something is terribly wrong.

As we, in our local body, set ourselves to have these outreach programs this summer, putting on monthly cookouts for the community around us, it would be well to bear in mind that for most of those who may come to these events are largely in that same mindset; that this is like those rental share pitches.  You get the freebie, but you have to sit through the speech.  You don’t have to pay it attention.  You don’t have to buy it.  But you have to sit through it.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  And if we look at how we shape these programs, isn’t this exactly the model we’re following?  Oh, we’ll give you some fun, but you have to listen to this as well.  And yes, that may work for some small number of those who come.  It may be that those who are inclined to accept such an invitation, knowing there’s bound to be that catch of having to here the gospel message, are those in whom the Spirit is already at work, stirring a curiosity and a desire to know of this God.  Maybe.  Or, they may just see the price of admission as worth the annoyance to have the food.  They may just be getting one over on these foolish Christians, as they suppose.  And yes, God may choose to sovereignly move upon them in spite of their intentions.  He did us, didn’t He?  But I have to wonder why, when God is pleased to expand His kingdom through the foolishness of preaching, we feel the need to use modern marketing strategies.  Are we making best use of the tools at our disposal, or are we simply being shaped by the culture, and trying to put a holy dressing on it?  It’s a hard call to make.

But be that as it may.  Pray.  Pray for us.  Pray for your leaders, for your fellow members, for yourself, but not solely, nor even primarily, for those wants and needs that define us.  It’s all well and good to pray for this one’s healing, and that one’s job, and so on.  But when this becomes the major component in prayer, I think we’ve lost the thread.  Pray for God’s purposes to proceed with utmost fruitfulness.  How about that?  Pray that these outreaches might have even greater result than we have reason to expect, even if it must come to pass in spite of our choice of means.  Pray that God might be glorified, not just within our little enclave, but by those who have opportunity to witness the work God is doing in us.  Pray that we, individually and as a communion, might truly live this faith we claim, might walk worthy of the God Who calls us, might live the faith we hold, and by doing so witness more loudly to the culture around us than ever we will by empty words.

Father, indeed You are truly holy; holy in a fashion that I still cannot properly appreciate.  Again and again I am set back in my thinking when I consider that You, so utterly pure and so thoroughly intolerant of sin in any form or fashion, have chosen to not merely call me that I might eventually come into Your presence once I’ve got myself together, but You have so willed as to make Your abode in me.  How can this be?   How am I still standing?  I don’t know, beyond to say, “but God.”  I needn’t ask what I’ve done to deserve such an honor, for I already know the answer:  Nothing.  I have nothing to offer, nothing to give that would even begin to address Your worth.  Yet, here You are.  What could I ask from You?  Would I like my back feeling better?  Of course, but set alongside the wonder of Your calling, Your companionship, what is that to me?  If it will serve Your purpose, fine.  If it serves Your purpose that I be reminded of my weakness, fine.  Only, Thy will be done.  I pray that for myself, for I know too well how readily I can resist, how much I can throw myself at my own interests to the neglect of Yours.  I pray that for the church in which You have set me in this season.  Thy will be done by us in our joined pursuits.  Thy will be done in and by those You have appointed to guide Your church in this season, and may they (and we) be ever mindful that it is indeed Your church.  Thy will be done as we strive to be good stewards of this work You have entrusted into our hands, and may You have full return on our efforts.  May You be glorified.  Whether this church be known far and wide, or whether it is another anonymous body of believers, may You be glorified.  Mold us and make us after Your will, and I pray, find us ready, willing, and glad to come join You in what You are doing.