Prayer to Go?
July 30, 2015The “fast” in fast-food-drive-thrus is getting slower. The amount of time consumers are spending waiting in the drive-thru line is getting longer due to the complexity of new products major fast-food chains are selling and because of double checking for order accuracy. For example, a Cantina Bell bowl at Taco Bell may have up to 12 ingredients to assemble and double check. Nothing makes a drive-thru experience more maddening for a customer than getting the wrong food! So now the average amount of time the typical consumer spends waiting in a drive-thru line is 219.97 seconds in 2014 compared to 180.83 seconds in 2013.
The genius of a drive-thru is that it provides services, usually food or banking, which allows the customer to purchase products without leaving their car and having to park their car. Unlike drive-ins, where the customers park their cars next to each other and a carhop server brings the food to the cars, the drive-thru allows you to keep on moving.
Nowadays, however, there seems to be no limit to what “business” drive-thrus can serve. The other day, I drove by a renowned church in my hometown and saw this sign:
What?! Hungry for God? Thirsty for spiritual nourishment? Please drive-thru and pay zero dollars and zero cents at the first window? Immediately several questions ran through my mind: Is this serious? Who comes here? People with serious trials and challenges? People at the end of their rope? People who do not go to church? People without a relationship with God or friends to pray for them?
So I did what any serious researcher would do. I “googled” it and discovered that this local church isn’t the only church with drive-thru prayer and it actually started getting popular in other parts of the USA this past Lenten season. Its purpose? Not for church growth but simply an outreach for hurting people to have someone pray for their needs.
In my hometown, this church started drive-thru prayer as an evangelistic initiative for hurting people and the drive-thru is open every Tuesday from 4-6 pm. Apparently you drive thru and two people approach your car, ask for your prayer intent, pray for you, and record your prayer needs so that long after you drive off, they will continue to pray for you.
After passing that sign, and while waiting in a fast-food-drive-thru line up the street from this church, I chewed on this idea and was filled with mixed emotions. I was thankful that a church took the initiative to serve people with a place to ask for prayer, and I was sad that possibly the people didn’t know they could go directly to God anywhere, anytime, Who is available 24/7, to hear their prayer, or that they didn’t have loved ones who would pray for them.
In my 219.97 seconds sitting in the fast-food-drive thru, I thanked God that He has all the time in the world to hear and answer my prayers, that He has given me good friends and family who faithfully pray for me, and that I don’t need to sit in prayer drive-thru line.
I can’t wait for next Tuesday though. I’m going to do a reverse drive-thru at that church. No, I’m not going to drive backwards through the line. I’m going to drive forward, stop at the two people who approach my car to pray for me, and reverse the request by asking them if I can pray for them.
1First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
I Timothy 2:1-5