Congregational minister speaks on
the power of prayer (but not GPS)

On his way to lecture at the Grosse Pointe Ecumenical Men’s Breakfast recently, the Rev. Richard Yeager-Stiver decided to use his GPS unit to navigate to Memorial Church on the lakefront.

Luckily he didn’t let his new technology dictate his moves. His unit advised him to turn left, which would have put him in Lake St. Clair, so he ignored it. But then the computer-generated directions switched to: You are in the lake, turn right. You are in the lake, turn right.

Yeager-Stiver, who leads the Grosse Pointe Congregational Church in the Farms, arrived safely for his lecture to the men of all faiths who gather weekly to learn about other religions and hear a 20-minute spiritual message.

The minister talked about the power of prayer and its importance in these perilous times. As an illustration he cited an apocryphal story about a Baptist church that started a campaign of petitions and prayers to block a local bar from erecting a new building. The week before the grand opening, as the story goes, lightning struck the building and it burned to the ground.

The Baptists were feeling smug about the demise until the bar owner sued them for being ultimately responsible for the destruction because of their prayers. The church’s attorneys, of course, denied any responsibility in their reply to the court.

When the judge reviewed the pleadings he supposedly commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this case. It appears that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church congregation that does not.”

Grosse Pointe Congregational, which has been around for nearly 70 years, includes elements of the United Church of Christ, the evangelical and reformed church, German Lutheran and Presbyterian traditions and the Baptists. It merged with the Jefferson Avenue Baptist Church in 1976.

So folks from all of those Protestant traditions were in church on Christmas Day, Dec. 25 and took part in 15 minutes of silent prayer for the safety and well-being of the United States, the poor, the sick, the frail and the hungry. They started praying at 11 a.m.

At 11:05 a.m. that day, according to news reports somewhere over Canada or the Grosse Pointes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallub, the underdud bomber was in Northwest Airlines flight 253’s bathroom preparing to blow the plane out of the sky.

It never happened. Did it have anything to do with the concentrated prayers of those Congregationalists? Far be it from me to say it didn’t.

Visitors are welcome at the Ecumenical Men’s Breakfasts in Memorial’s Fellowship Hall. The first one is free, and $6 for subsequent visits. Breakfast is served promptly at 7:30 a.m., the speaker goes on at 7:50 and is through by 8:10 a.m.
 

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