Cast
Pastor
Evangelism head (EH)
Choir Master (CM)
Technical head (TH)
Ushering head (UH)
Visitation head (VH)
Bible Study head (BS)
Media head (MH)
Prayer head (Prayo)
Welcoming team head (WTH)
Welfare head (WH)
Protocol head (PH)
In a small enclosed room, with
just 12 people in attendance, who happened to be the departmental heads of workers
in the church, and the pastor. The pastor had called for a prayer meeting with
his workers. His church is beginning to grow after 5years of stagnancy and it
was required of them to invest a lot of prayers. The Pastor then called only
for the heads of departments, excluding their assistants. The chairs were
arranged in the U shape with the Pastor in front.
Pastor: (dressed in a
smart round neck T-shirt, black trousers, and palm slippers) Let us pray. (He
shut his eyes and closed his palms together to form a praying hand)
All workers bowed their heads in their seats and shut their
eyes.
Pastor: Everlasting Father, King Of Glory, King Of Peace, I
Am That I Am, Thank You, Lord. For Your goodness, kindness, and tender mercies,
we say thank You Lord
All: (in unison) thank
You Lord.
Pastor: (his eyes
tightly shut) Father, in any way we've come short of Your glory by
offending You one way or the other, we ask that You have mercy on us and
forgive us in Jesus name...
All: Amen.
Pastor: Father we ask, that that which we've come here to do
today yields maximum and bountiful results
All: Amen.
Pastor: We yield ourselves to You Spirit of the living God.
This we pray in Jesus name... Amen
All: Amen.
The Pastor squinted to
scan the room. Everyone looked around as well wondering what he was looking for.
PH: (turned to his
right where the BS is seated) what's he searching for?
BS: I don't know. We should ask you. You are closer to the
Pastor than the rest of us.
PH: The fact that my group is the closest to the Pastor
doesn't mean...
Pastor: ahem (he
cleared his throat) I'm glad I have all my departmental heads in attendance
because I remember two or three people asking for permission to be absent but I
didn't grant it and we didn't settle it. I'm glad we are all in attendance.
Thank you for coming. I honor your honor.
Some chuckled at his
last statement while some laughed.
Pastor: Without wasting time, let's go on. We all know why
we're here. I said we have a meeting. The most important meeting we'll ever
have. It's even more important than our administrative meetings. I asked for only
the heads because I need to pass it to you first, then you relay the same
message to your assistants, and in your respective groups (He looked around again to be sure they were getting his message, and
they all paid rapt attention). Okay, so we're here to pray.
Prayo was all smiles. WH
made a face as if to say, "really?" some were whispering to their
seat partner while others murmured. They all thought they were going to have a
meeting about the overwhelming crowd the church pulled lately. It has never happened
like that since the inception of the church.
Pastor: if you noticed, I'm not exactly dressed like a
Pastor.
UH: (he spoke out
loud, he meant to whisper but the silent room gave him away) I was
wondering why Pastor dressed like he was going out for a stroll.
Everyone looked in his
direction, some in disbelief, and some in awe...
Pastor: (laughing)
Even I feel weird dressed like this. I'm used to being suited up. But what we
are here to do is serious business. So I'm particularly dressed to suit the
occasion.
MH: (raising his hand)
but sir, we usually hold our prayer meetings with others as vigils. Why is this
different sir?
Pastor: Good question. This is different because I just learnt
something new about prayer and I want to teach my immediate workers, first
hand, so you can pass it to the others...
MH: okay sir.
They all brought out
their notes, ready to pen down what the Pastor was going to say.
Pastor: (shaking his
head) No no no no... We have no needs for books. You can put them away. I’m
not going to teach you theoretically. It’s going to be practical. You learn the
art of prayer by praying, and we’re going to be here for a while.
There was whispering across the
room, everyone had something to say.
Pastor:
You’ll understand as we proceed in our prayers. Let’s rise up please, and move
the chairs to a corner of the room.
CM: (standing and moving his chair) what’s
this about?
WH: You
heard him. We want to pray.
CM: I heard.
But what’s with packing our chairs?
WH: (made a face as if
to say “How would I know?”)
They stacked the
chairs in a corner of the room.
Pastor: I want you to recollect that I said I’m going to be teaching
you what I learnt about prayer. Therefore as we pray, I’ll be stopping us as
intervals to explain some things, if need be. Let me ask, how many hours do we
pray in our respective groups? Starting from my right.
EH: an hour sir.
CM: Say forty-five minutes
WH: one hour
UH: we just pray as we clean up the church
VH: about thirty minutes before we go out
BS: one hour
PH: thirty minutes
Prayo: an hour and some minutes
WTH: one hour
TH: forty minutes before we set up
MH: one hour
To be continued...
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