Death of a Prayer Meeting

Once upon a time (1971 ?) a group of people came together in Christ the King Chapel on the campus of the
College of Steubenville (now known as Franciscan University) to worship God via the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Charismatic Renewal had come to the Catholic Church at Duquesne University in 1967. Prayer Meetings were
springing up everywhere in the early 1970s. The "Jesus" movement had been growing throughout the 60s in
various fringe elements mostly among young people. Now it had burst its way into the mainline Churches and
onto the campus of a Catholic College along the Ohio River.

The Prayer Meetings on Thursday nights at the College of Steubenville would start small and quickly grow
larger. People from miles around would come to experience the inspired worship, teachings and prophecies.
They would pray over each other for healing, cry together, and leave in groups to share together over coffee and
late night dinners. At its peak, there were 500 people coming every week in the mid 1970s.

This is a story of how good people with the belief they were listening to God murdered that Prayer Meeting.

I never planned, wanted or dreamed I would EVER go to anything called a Prayer Meeting. I was just 18 and
freshly out of High School. In a fit of independence I had moved out of my parent's home so that I could enjoy
my freedom. So it was I was sitting on the porch of my new home bored to death with nothing to do when an
acquaintance from our parish rolled up in his car. Leaning over and out the passenger window he says, "Hey
John! Want to go to a Prayer Meeting?"

I had never been to a prayer meeting -had no idea what even happened there except for the obvious- and that
idea seemed like a horrible waste of my already wasted time. I was agnostic in those days even though I played
guitar at two liturgies every Sunday morning at St Als. I loved playing and singing with the people who
provided the music. With my musician friend Slicky -in between liturgies- I would wander into the empty
sacristy to munch on some un-transubstantiated communion wafers. It was a very happy time.

So when this friend asked me to go with him to a "prayer meeting", I made a hasty excuse: "Not tonight. .. I
have plans. Maybe next week?"

"Sure!" said my nemesis, "I'll swing by next week."

And so he left happy that I might go next week while I sighed at having dodged a bullet called a "prayer
meeting." Silently I vowed to be any place else but right where I was sitting next week. And of course the
following week there I was -in the exact same place I had been the week before- when this same, prayer-
meeting-recruitment-machine rolled up about the same time with a big, big grin on his face.

It therefore came to pass that I attended my first prayer meeting ... having no idea what it was I was about to
experience. I grabbed my guitar at the last minute and so was able to play along with the folks leading the
music. It was a small group ... maybe 40 people tops ... but they could sing. And after several songs that went
on for 20 minutes or so, the entire group slid into glossolalia ("speaking/singing in tongues") ... and I literally
thought there were angels in the room or I was in heaven. They sang together a capella in harmonies that
floated in every direction, weaving in and out of each other like colored smoke over a blazing fire. I had never
heard singing so lovely, so enchanting, so ... peace creating.

I
Now I was extremely ashamed to do the verbal "free" worship thing ... where you just shouted out praises to
God in a random but enthusiastic manner. It would be 18 months before I would cave to that behavior. But the
singing in tongues had me at, "Fala hada chok haddahada sogoshnia." (That's tongues for something, I'm
pretty sure.) Seriously ... it was ancient, mysterious beauty-speak of some kind. I was enamored with it. I was
coming back.

And so I did ... all summer long. I didn't have a car so my recruitment guy picked me up every week. Plus
there were some cute girls who went too.

About the end of August my father comes to me and asks me if I am going to college. The College of
Steubenville was just a few miles down the road and after a short discussion I agreed to go there. I packed my
clothes into some boxes, grabbed my guitar and started school a few days late. That's when I had my first
experience of a BIG Prayer Meeting.

To fully participate in a prayer meeting you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. This was described to me as
the same experience the apostles had on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit bestowed upon them the seven "gifts".
They then spoke in tongues and became very courageous in their zeal to spread the Good News. I did all that I
could do to resist this Baptism. At times however, sitting in Christ the King Chapel with the music ministry in
1975 in front of several hundred people, I felt something inside me of DIEING to express itself. The urge to
participate was very strong but the shame and fear attached to public worship held me back. I was definitely in
a bind.

It was January 1975 when I was asked to join the 7 member music ministry. I was delighted to do so. The
Thursday night Prayer Meeting (which called itself the Community of God's Love) began with wonderful
music ... sometimes loud and boisterous, sometimes sweet and somber. The music would subside and a
growing murmur of voices would take its place ... singing or chanting in the gift of ''tongues''. Finally after 20
minutes of this sort of worship the chapel would fall into a deafening silence. Five hundred people in one
room ... and not a sound to be heard. We described it as being in the presence of God. I look back and think
that maybe we were.

Following the worship, a priest or a lay person would stand up and give a short talk about some subject that they
were inspired to speak about. Sometimes it was "open mic" night and anyone could come forward to share.
Most ofthe sharing was interesting to hear. Occasionally there would be some weirdness but we all just
laughed or applauded politely. Frequently there would be times for healing, where people would receive
messages from God that someone in the group was being healed of this or that. The healings could be spiritual,
physical, emotional, and/or relational. People also had demons cast out of them, though this was rarely as
theatrical as it sounds. I never saw anyone levitating to the ceiling or spewing green, vomit-like fluids at fiery,
wide-eyed priests. It was all very genteel, loving and kind.

In August of 1975 two friends of mine who I had met at school cornered me. "John, it's time." I would have
avoided the Baptism in the Holy Spirit for years ... but they put me up against the wall and wouldn't let me
down.

I caved. We prayed. I gave myselfto it.

There is no other way to describe it. I didn't get "overwhelmed" by God and ''taken over" by some force
outside myself. I allowed myself to take it in, breathe it back out. The next day at work I practiced the gift of
tongues when (hopefully) no one else was in ear shot. It was a deliberate action on my part to practice
spirituality in this manner. I enjoyed it. I don't regret it. I miss it, even.

The next several years I played my guitar and sang almost every Thursday night while I was at school. We
were writing our own music by then and in 1976 the music ministry made its first vinyl record album. I could
sing and pray with the best of them. At the same time, a group of people who felt "God" calling them to be
more committed to each other formed the first "covenant" group. These were people who had been coming to -
and in some cases leading- the prayer meeting for years. This small group started meeting together regularly,
but apart from the Prayer meeting. They too called themselves the Community of God's Love as their desire to
be closer as a community had grown out of their participation in the Thursday night Prayer Meetings. In the
following article (PILGRIMAGE) Sr. Ann Shields would describe what was happening with this small group,
how their energies became focused inward on their mutual, communal life. With the core members of the
Thursday night prayer meeting headed off to greener pastures, the end of the Thursday night prayer meetings
had begun.

In that same issue of the Word of God's Love, (Vol II, No. 11) a former leader ofthe Community of God's
Love Thursday night prayer meeting and now a "Coordinator" of the covenant community, describes the
changes they have arbitrarily created in the Thursday night prayer meeting. He does this in the second article:
FOCUS: PRAISE MEETING. This leader describes the prayer meeting as an "outreach" of the new, smaller
covenant group. What is clear is that the prayer meeting which gave birth to the covenant community is being
made less a place where God speaks to, ministers to and heals ALL of His People. It is now just a place for
"praise" because of the vast needs of the diverse groups attending. Assuming that they are somehow
responsible to meet these needs, the covenant community leaders decrease the frequency of prayer meetings to
every other week and limit the focus to just "praise." In effect, they abandon what God built and gave to them
because suddenly they feel responsible to meet the needs of people that God was taking care of all along.

I assisted in the demise of this Prayer Meeting. I became a member of the Covenant Group. I share
responsibility for the abandonment and death of a perfectly fine, Thursday night prayer meeting. In retrospect,
what God had given me and my friends was far less work, far more nourishing and far more Divine than the
monster we created for ourselves. I feel like the Israelites fleeing Egypt and lost in the desert. God gave them
everything they needed to survive and Ten Commandments to live by. They took their hunger for God and
created a golden calf to worship made out of the most precious things they owned. God's gifts of manna and
law were basic and sustaining. Their creation of their own god took all of value that they had and left them
poorer, diminished.

I perceive the lesson in this most colossal of failures to be this: God creates beautiful gifts and lavishes them on
human beings. Humans receive these gifts and immediately decide they can be improved upon, modified or
administrated accordingly. Man meddles too much. Man thinks he can do better. But the answers are more
simplistic and therefore more difficult for man: Accept the gifts of God for what they are, not what you think
they can be, or should be. Resist the urge to meddle in God's creations ... be they spiritual, physical or human.
Love the creations of God as they are. Nourish them. Respect them. Leave them be as God made them.

We diminish the gifts of God when we exert some perceived jurisdiction over those gifts, no matter how well
intended we may be.

John Flaherty, Grand Island, NE

March 20, 2011


THE NEWSLETTER OF THE COMMUNITY
Pilgrimage
By Sister Ann (Betsey) Shields
Over the past two years, a number
of brothers and sisters in the Com-
munity of God's Love have known a
call to commit themselves more deeply
to one another, to grow in holiness of
life, to serve the body with their gifts
and talents in a regular way, and to
be in an intregal part of the renewal
of the Church.
Such desires led approximately 50
of us to commit ourselves in July, 1976,
to be covenant servants to the com-
munity. A monthly meeting of the en-
tire group was held for teaching and
fellowship, We agreed to weekly resi-
dential or non-residential household
meetings for the purpose of sharing
our lives and giving support and en-
couragement to one another. We ac-
cepted headship over our lives for pas-
toral care and discernment. We sub-
mitted our ministries to clear authority
so that we might learn to be servants
of. one another.
God blessed us-we suffered and we
grew. As the commitment became more
encompassing, some believed they
could no longer continue, others de-
sired to lay down their lives.
By M.ay o.f 1977, sixty-one covenant
servants and their children gathered
for a weekend of prayer and discern-
,ment to see -where God would have
us go.
We received teaching on:
-unqualified commitment, the neces-
sary quality to build community;
-living by the Word of Gad;
-discernment on the alternatives
that were before us;
THE WORD OF
GOD'S LOVE
OF GOD'S LOVE - VOL. II, No.11
-how to respond to God's word and
move forward in the vision.
W,e prayed and recreated, shared
vision and hope, fears and concerns.
By the end of the weekend, we knew
God was doing something new with
us. Each brother and sister in his/her
heart had to face some serious ques-
tions: (1) Am I called to build com-
munity? Do I have the willingness to
work to achieve the end, not pressing
to close the gap between reality and
expectations? Am I able to be flexible,
try new ways, submit to authority? (2)
Am I committed in difficult situations
to ask myself "How am I going to
work this out?", not whether I will
work this out, but How. (3) Am I
willing to embrace a life of sacrifice,
or do I seek security? (4) Have I made
a choice for God and His work, or is
it self-ambition? (5) God has spoken
through prophecy in the renewal of
coming darkness and the call to band
together. How am I living by that
word? What is to be my response?
Over the summer months, we met
together every other week, exploring,
sometimes painfully discerning God's
will for us individually and as a body.
In July 1977, we heard God call us
to move on from being covenant ser-
vants to the full commitment of our
lives and our children to build a cov-
enant community.
Two years before, Ralph Martin had
spoken at a conference of the need to
follow God's Spirit-that God's word
today might be tomorrow's stumbling
block if we cling to it. We needed to
be ready to move on. Otherwise, we
would face the famine and drought of
which the prophet Amos spoke. (Amos
R: 11).
And so, on Sunday, August 21, we
gathered in the Chapel of Christ the
NOVEMBER,1977
King at the College of Steubenville,
and in the Eucharistic Liturgy, com-
mitted our lives to build a covenant
community so that we might live as
brothers and sisters committed to ad-
vance the Kingdom of God within. His
Church.
We knew that we did not have the
wisdom or resources to form our lives
and the lives of our children into com-
munity. We asked for assistance and
agreed to submit our leadership for
torrnation to the Word of God Com-
munity in Ann Arbor. As a result, we
found ourselves part of a large family
of 12 communities of brothers and sis-
ters from many parts of the world who
had agreed over the past year to do
the same.
At present, we gather weekly for a
community meeting of teaching and
fellowship. Our teaching is based on
the foundational programs from Ann
Arbor.
Weekly, we are also committed to
meet in smaller groups for formation,
direction and accountability of our
lives; for support and encouragement
to grow in holiness and truth accord-
ing to our state in life.
At present there are 13 married
couples, 9 committed celibates, both
men and women, 11 single women, 7
single men, and 20 children. Our adult
age range is 22-56. We come from all
walks of life, and of the total number
of adults, 74% have been involved in
the Catholic Charismatic Renewal for
more than five years.
We do not know the details of where
God will lead us, or' what He will ask
of us; but we have heard His call to
band our lives together NOW: to be
formed as men and women of faith in
the transforming power of His love.

Focus: Praise Meeting
By '
The Community of God's Love has
entered a whole new phase of develop-
ment in just the past few months (see
"Pilgrimage" in this issue). Conse-
quently, it has been necessary to re-
examine the validity and effectiveness
of its outreaches. The change from a
weekly prayer meeting to a biweekly
praise meeting is one of the results
of that evaluation. Let's take a little
closer look at the shift.
. - A Coordinator
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FIRST . OF, ALL, WHY THE Christian growth in the individuals who
OHANGE? As the coordinators of the participated. We therefore settled on
community looked at the kinds of a less regular meeting, in order to en-
_ people who have attended the weekly courage people to seek additional
prayer meeting over the past year, a means of Christian support and fellow-
tremendous diversity was apparent. It ship on a frequent basis. It was by no
was no longer the variety that was means a sign of falling apart or the
healthy for the Body, but rather large disintegration of The Community of
groupings of people with vastly dif- God's Love.
ferent needs-students from dozens HOW IS IT WORKING? More and
of kinds of prayer groups, newcomers more people are expressing their de-
who had yet to be evangelized, Chris- light and new freedom in the change
tians who regularly came to the weekly to a praise meeting. They are finding
prayer meeting as their only source new power in extended worship. They
of spiritual nourishment, and Chris- are being deeply effected by the evan-
tians who belonged to /' other prayer gelistic testimonies, But most import-
groups in addition to attending the ant, God is happy with the change,
Thursday night meeting. When these In a prophetic word at the first praise
diverse groups came together in one meeting on Sept. 22, the Lord said,
prayer meeting, it became increasingly "For days upon end I have .searched
difficult to build a cohesive Body and for a people who would praise me
give meaningful teachings that would just for who I am I have found
touch every level. In short, the coord- you, my people Therefore I am
inators concluded that God was calling pouring out a n,ew wave of my Spirit
for a meeting based on the simplest among you, so that you might be ele-
common denominator: praise. vated to join the saints and angels in
However, we were also convinced giving me praise ... And I assure you,
that a praise meeting was clearly in- you will see mighty works in your
sufficient to sustain any kind of solid midst because of this."