Taking the Church's Temperature

“My house will be called a house of prayer.”  Matthew 21:13. (NIV)

Vance Havner (1901-1986) was a popular revivalist who boldly proclaimed the word of God for seventy-three years.  The following excerpt is from the book When God Breaks Through: Sermons on Revival by Vance Havner.

“I think prayer is the thermometer of a church.  What a church is on Wednesday night is what it is, not what it is on Sunday morning.  You can’t tell much about a church on Sunday morning.  You’ve got the morning glories and all the rest of them.  But it’s Wednesday night when you can find out what a church is like—how many people care enough to come to pray.”

If prayer is the measure of a church’s temperature, I think we are in trouble.  God says He wants His house to be a house of prayer--not preaching, not programs, not fellowship. We are very busy doing things, neglecting that which is most important.  Prayer should be the very heartbeat of our churches—but today, there is barely a pulse. In Revelation, Jesus describes the church at Sardis saying, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”  They were doing things that gave the appearance of life, but they were really on life-support.  What was His advice to them?  “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent.”

God said, “My house will be called a house of prayer.”