Reason 9 - Remembering prayers

Well, it's a new month, and unfortunately March doesn't have 5 weeks. So what to do... Well, since I already made up a list of 10, actually 11 things about prayer meetings, and I haven't prepared at all for this month's theme (I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Measter), I'll just finish up this week with reasons 9 and 10 of the prayer thing. I'm sure the title gave it away. I can't pull anything over you, smart reader!
So... been to any prayer meetings lately? Even if you haven't, I'm sure by now, you've heard how people share about their troubles and things that they're going through. That's all fine and good, but do you know what the problem is? They actually expect you to remember their problems! And then pray about them! What's up with that? And you know what that means, right? I have to listen to these fine Christians, attentively. As in, hold on, and let me get my notebook out so I can take notes, kind of attentive.
Do you know that we retain at most 50% of the information in a lecture? According to research, an adult's attention span is at most 20 minutes, and students retain only 20% of the last 10 minutes of a lecture, while they can remember up to 70% of the first 10 minutes. The lesson learned? Keep your talking to 10 minutes. If you find yourself going longer than 10 minutes, pause to tell a joke or funny story, then talk for the next 10 minutes. What I like to do, especially while someone is relating their prayer request in tears, is to pointedly tap at my watch after 10 minutes, you know, just to let them know that time is up. Ok, I probably wouldn't do that, but it would be funny.
It's hard to listen carefully to other people, while at the same time, coming up with what you're going to talk about. Cause believe me, I've been there before, where someone has obviously not prepared their prayer request ahead of time, and then they start rambling. I mean, they'll talk about their serious problem first, and then maybe to fill the silence, they just start talking about whatever thoughts just flit through their mind, kind of like a stream of consciousness thing. When they start repeating themselves, that's when they lose my interest. I've actually been to prayer meetings, where the person actually forgot what their original point was. Their brain probably heard the words coming out and just said, "Ahh screw it!" and just shuts down. Then the mouth is on autopilot, and apparently it's rude to tell someone to "shut their pie hole because they're depriving me of oxygen." I don't know why that's rude.
Then, after 30-40 minutes of sharing (given of course, how many people there are), they expect you to remember what everyone's request is. Even the first guy who talked about something really boring. It's worse when they ask you to pray for the person on the right to speed up the prayer. Because then, you're put on the spot when you have to ask the person on the right what their prayer request is. It's like saying to them, "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying too close attention to your sharing. Can you give me the Cliff Notes version?"
So then we finally get to the praying. And I'm expected to pray for someone about a problem that I don't fully understand. Some people have told me to pray as specifically as possible. However, while praying, it's not a good idea to stop in the middle to ask the person on which hand is his rash. Therefore, I'm trying to pray for something I don't really know much about, while at the same time, keeping it general enough that I don't pray for the wrong thing. Because who knows, if I pray for the wrong hand, that rash may never get healed!
My solution? Bring a chalkboard or white board, and then designate someone (not me) to write down everyone's prayer request. Ideally, that someone should be able to pay attention and not drift off, and most importantly have neat handwriting. We don't want people to be squinting and concentrating more on deciphering someone's hieroglyphics than on how to pray for the other person. Also remember, keep your prayer requests to a 10 minute maximum, and oh, include a joke to start. Nothing like a good laugh to get people to pay attention to you.