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How do you pray for Barack Obama?

Jan 20th, 2009 | By art rogers | Category: Politics, Prayer Request

Interesting clash of ideologies among evangelicals.  I read one report where a man was calling for prayers for the new president to fail in his aspirations and agendas.

The opposite perspective among evangelicals is represented most famously by Donald Miller, who prayed during the Democratic National Convention and tends to represent a great number of younger evangelicals by most observations.

So…  You are called to pray for the leaders of our nation.  How do you pray for Barack Obama?

Side note:  what did you think of Rick Warren’s Inagural Prayer?

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6 comments
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  1. Rick Boyne January 20th, 2009 2:05 pm

    Art, Here is what I’ve put on my website and the church site as well:

    As our country experiences another peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, let us commit to pray for our new President. President Obama will need God’s direction and God’s wisdom as he leads our country. We must be diligent to pray for him and the decisions that he makes, that they would bring glory and honor to God. Pray for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to surround himself with wise counsel. The honor of leading our country is no easy task and our new President will need our prayers!

    I think it is nonsense to pray that Obama will fail. I think it is better to pray that God would guide him!

    PS: are you going to the Ev Conf next week? We need to meet!

    Rick Boynes last blog post..Pray for our new President

  2. art rogers January 20th, 2009 2:11 pm

    Rick,

    That’s a good prayer and a good answer.

    No, I’m not going to the Ev Conf next week. We’ll have to look for another time and place.

  3. Debbie Kaufman January 20th, 2009 2:33 pm

    I was very impressed with Rick Warren’s prayer and thought it powerful, especially how he invoked the name of Christ.

    Debbie Kaufmans last blog post..The Inaugeration: What Do You Expect

  4. Joseph M. Smith January 20th, 2009 4:27 pm

    I was not happy with Warren’s prayer. At the beginning he tried to embrace Christians, Jews, and Muslims with phrases each group could identify with. Then he wandered over into lecturing God. One or two lines seemed calculated to draw a response from the crowd, and it did — applause! He ended up invoking the name of Jesus in several formats, presumably to include everyone — but the name of Jesus in Hebrew and in Arabic is probably quite offensive to those groups in that context. Then to conclude with the Lord’s Prayer, presumably expecting others to follow, is again an assertion that the crowd is essentially Christian.

    With Lowery, of course I responded well to the quotations from “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, but he too began to lecture, and the ending about blacks no longer staying back, brown stick around, etc., was offensively cute to me. I do not do cute in prayer! But I liked his ending, doing what African-American preachers often do, rising to a climax that calls for an “Amen” without necessarily invoking a particular name. And he knew enough not to say, “Let the church say ‘Amen’” because this was/is not a church.

    It all makes me feel, as one who has tried too many time to do public formalities like this (university graduations), that we do a disservice to people and their understanding of prayer with this sort of exercise.

  5. art rogers January 20th, 2009 4:33 pm

    Cute like this:

    Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around…

    (LAUGHTER)

    … when yellow will be mellow…

    (LAUGHTER)

    LOWERY: … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

    AUDIENCE: Amen.

    LOWERY: Say Amen.

    AUDIENCE: Amen.

    LOWERY: And Amen.

    AUDIENCE: Amen.

  6. Kevin Bussey January 20th, 2009 4:41 pm

    I didn’t see Rick Warren or any of the Inauguration for that matter since I was working. :)

    However, I will be praying for our President and yes he is my President even though I didn’t vote for him. I pray he will seek God and that God will use him. If he fails we all fail.

    Kevin Busseys last blog post..‘Horrified’ by ‘Aggressively Christian’ Prayers?