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Last Sunday morning I was in Stockholm, Sweden, visiting a church, Elimkyrkan. The pastor was finishing a sermon on love in the Christian community. In the application, he emphasized how small groups can create and sustain a sense of community. That's when a thought popped into my head: You should definitely start the home Bible study you've been thinking about for months. This fall.

I took that as a Spirit-inspired thought, and resolved to do that when I returned to the States.

After the sermon, the pastor explained that, during the next hymn, prayer ministers would stand at the front of the sanctuary to pray for anyone who came forward. And then as the hymn began, another thought popped into my head: You should go up for prayer for the home Bible study you want to start.

That's when the wrestling began.

At my home church, I have availed myself of a prayer minister during worship. Every Sunday, many in our parish do the same. So it would not have been out of character of me to do so in this at Elimkyrkan.

Neither was language a barrier. The service was in Swedish, yes, but it was translated through headphones into English. And every Swede I met on this trip could converse in English. So I assumed that the prayer ministers would be able to communicate with me.

The problem was that no one in the congregation stepped forward. When I saw six prayer ministers walk to the front,  I figured that a slew of people would step up, but no such thing happened. I surmised that either no one felt moved to do so this morning, or that this was a new custom the pastoral staff was trying to introduce to the congregation.

In any event, I now squirmed. On the one hand, the urging to go forward for prayer was just as strong as the urge to start a home Bible study, and I attributed both to the nudging of the Spirit. But the second nudge required a public commitment in a setting in which I was a stranger. Going forward alone would have drawn a great deal of attention to me.

So what? I debated. I'll never see these people again. And maybe the sight of one person, a visitor no less, going forward will encourage others to do so.

Then again, I thought, But what will they think I'm seeking prayer for? The minister had included in his invitation to prayer a call to commit one's life to Christ. I didn't want people thinking I hadn't already done that!

On this went through the hymn, until I finally defeated the Spirit, stubbornly staying rooted in my pew.

This, of course, is not an unusual situation for an evangelical to find himself in. We have been invited to do such in one way or another in many such services. As British historian of evangelicalism David Bebbington, in his now classic Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, has noted, conversionism—or what I call decisionism—is part and parcel of our Christian subculture. The Christian life does not just evolve. It also requires specific decisions and public commitments to deepen our faith and obedience.

We also believe that Christ is raised from the dead, alive and active in his Holy Spirit. He is not only Lord of the world, but of our lives, a God who would guide us with his loving, even daily commands.

So we've had to learn how to negotiate such moments—knowing that not every thought that pops into our head is from the Spirit, and knowing full well that some of them are! We've all looked back in gratitude for such moments.

I've told this story before, but it is too good to not repeat here. In preparing a list of people to invite to a Thanksgiving meal one year, the name of a couple my wife had just met popped into her head. She took it as a nudging of the Spirit. During the Thanksgiving meal, this husband got into a deep conversation with another guest, and the result was that his life vocation turned on a dime. As soon as was feasible, he quit his job, applied for graduate school, and got a job in his new field. He's there to this day, 30 years later. It's difficult not to believe that this Thanksgiving conversation was providential.

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September (Web-only) 2010, Vol. 54

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