Today, Easter Sunday, I went to Sunday School and had a great time worshipping with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Just before the Bible lesson, the teacher asked for any prayer concerns before the group prayed together. Several hands went up and we took these requests one by one. Then one elderly woman slipped up her hand and when asked what she wanted us to pray about, she simply said, “Unspoken”.
Now, for those of you who did not grow up in the Bible Belt, an unspoken prayer request is usually a deeply personal request that the requestee feels is too personal to say out loud in a group setting.
I don’t know how it got started, but I know why. People want to be prayed for but do not want to get vulnerable with their brothers and sisters in Christ. These requests are treated very seriously and their sincerity is NEVER QUESTIONED.
But, where does this leave the person praying? They pray for something of which they don’t know how to pray and the people listening to those prayers said out loud are not edified by them at all. We can’t help this brother/sister. We can’t empathize with them. We don’t know if things are progressing the way they should (other than taking that person’s word for it). We can’t give that person advice. It leaves us totally impotent in impacting our fellow believer’s life.
Furthermore, what typically happens is that these unspokens are treated more seriously than the ones that are spoken. This makes the group an unwitting participant in a practice that comes off as arrogant. And since these are treated more seriously, in youth group settings it becomes trendy to give an unspoken request. I have literally seen youth group prayer lists where the unspokens outnumbered the spoken requests. Plus, think of how silly it seems for someone who didn’t grow up in church to visit a Sunday School class for the first time and hear someone give an unspoken request. That visitor probably is thinking the thought we should all be thinking: “If it is unspoken then why speak it??!”
Giving an unspoken request is just like the person who says, “I have a secret, but I can’t tell you what it is.” If you can’t tell us, then why did you say you had a secret? That kind of stuff should drive people nuts, but in the case of the unspoken request, we see the opposite as true.
The question is: Why?
It’s simple, really. People don’t want people knowing their ‘binness and other people don’t want them telling them their ‘binness. But, is this the way Christians should act? Let’s consider James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
This verse is a slam-dunk against the practice of unspoken prayer requests. There are no levels of confession mentioned here. The finality of it leads me to believe that we are to be open with each other or not be open at all. And why are we to confess? Because the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. In other words, we will more easily see God at work in our lives when other, more mature believers are praying for us.
One more thing about this matter: whenever you hear a brother or sister get vulnerable for a moment and share a very personal issue with your group, you better keep it between those four walls. It is a sin to gossip, mock, or belittle that person or their personal prayer requests. It is those kinds of sins of the tongue that have caused people to not want to share their personal lives to begin with.
Now, let’s let the unspoken request go unspoken and let’s bring each other’s burdens to the Lord in prayer.
Hi Nathan,
You wrote some good thoughts about the importance of being open and vulnerable with each other in order to be able to help each other out and grow closer to God together. One critique though, it does help to pray for unspoken requests, not for the reasons of being to help the person out, but that God KNOWS the request, and He can be a help in the specific request even if we cannot.
Some requests need to be unspoken because they might be confidential, for example, a situation of sexual abuse involving other people one is concerned about (that is hopefully reported to authorities, but doesn’t need to be shared with the people praying). I think praying for someone’s unspoken request is a way to respect someone’s privacy (theirs or someone else’s) and still lift up a burden that they are probably very grateful to have prayed for!
By: Lynette on March 24, 2008
at 1:21 pm
Whenever I am in the position of being the one who is asked to pray for an unspoken prayer request, I always pray for it. It would be unwise of me and embarrassing to them to argue with them over the issue of the unspoken request.
However, I always ask that they give me at least a little something. In the case of sexual abuse, they don’t have to mention the abuse, but they could mention the way they feel at the time, such as: “Because of a bad situation in my life, I am feeling scared/angry/depressed/etc.” You see, now THAT is something I can pray for!
Because, you see, you are not just praying to God. You rightly stated in your reply that God already knows the request. And that goes to show us that prayer then is not for God. It’s for us. And if you are praying in a group, you need to keep the group in mind. By not giving any details or any leads whatsoever, you are nullifying the only reason why you would bring it up in a group setting.
Thank you for your comment (and being the very first comment on my blog at that!) and if I could, let me leave you with something to chew on: Some requests are simply not suited for a group setting. Maybe instead of asking a large group to pray for you, you can ask 1 or 2 close, trusted Christians to pray for you instead.
By: ndefalco on March 24, 2008
at 11:32 pm
A couple of thougths come to mind….
First, it is a know fact that in SOME case (a minority of cases) “unspoken” requests are code word for the local gossip clique to get together afterwards for something juicy. I would not say this if I had not seen it happen multiple times in a Sunday School setting.
Second, in a numerical-rather-than-spiritual-growth church environment adult Sunday School classes in some churches can become very large (say more than 20 members). At my church we have 4 median adult classes that each run over 70 attenders each sunday and one of them is over 100. In an environment like that frankly I don’t blame a person for not wanting to spill their guts about an extremely personal problem because for all they know there could be 4 or 5 gossip circles sitting right there in the same room.
When you mass produce ministry with the soul aim of growing a large congregation, you end up losing the personal intimacy and accountability between brothers and sisters within your church.
By: Lucas Defalco on March 25, 2008
at 9:37 pm
Regarding gossip, churches that lack a biblically sound church discipline policy and process (or churches that have one but never use it) become breeding grounds for harmful, destructive gossip. So as the gossip increases, the number of unspoken requests increase, which just adds more fuel to the gossips, and one we go into a vicious cycle.
By: Lucas Defalco on March 25, 2008
at 9:50 pm
Yes, you’re right, Lucas. Of course, the solution to cutting down gossip and maintaining intimacy is to birth a new group that is too large. But, that’s another subject altogether.
By: ndefalco on March 25, 2008
at 11:34 pm
Whether you are in a group of 70 or 1000, if you fail to mention your request instead of keeping it unspoken, you steal the benefit of group prayer. God uses the church body to pray for one another, and to enjoy the answer to His prayers as a group as well. This edifies the believer and the unbeliever. I think before you mention that you have an “unspoken” request, you really need to evaluate WHY you are unwilling to share it. I find with myself, when I requested “unspoken” requests it was due to pride. Who cares what others think of me if I am not right before God. If I admit to looking at pornography in a group, I may be ostracized, I may even be looked at strange. but I can almost guarantee you that I would likely be cured of it from that time forward. And you never know, it might actually lead to revival. It is how we handle our situations that truly reflect the Spirit within us.
I step down from my soapbox now.
By: Garett Brackett on November 9, 2009
at 3:38 pm
Garrett: Thank you for a thoughtful response. I agree, pride plays a big factor in unspoken prayer requests. This particular blog entry was somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction, so I will add that I take into account how damaged that person might be- that they may have been hurt in the past for making themselves open and vulnerable. And that results in them not being so willing to share prayer requests. But, the long-term solution is not to let it keep going, but to help them get rid of whatever it is that’s causing them not to open up to a group of fellow Christians.
By: ndefalco on November 10, 2009
at 4:37 pm