There is an interesting trend I have noticed over the years when it comes to praying for people in church.
I grew up as a pastor’s kid, later worked full time in a large church, and today remain deeply committed to and grateful for the ministry of the church I attend. Through all those seasons, one thing I have held very dear is the building of community within the body of believers.
There are many things that contribute to community growing wide—shared interests, regular conversation, serving together, showing up Sunday after Sunday. Those things matter deeply.
But true community must also grow deep.
And I wonder if depth is formed most authentically when we allow others to join us in the tender places of life: struggle, illness, grief, uncertainty, vulnerability. The moments where we are not polished or composed, but simply human.
One of my favorite quotes is by C.S. Lewis:
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’”
That quote has always felt profoundly true to me. Friendship deepens when we risk transparency. Trust grows when someone bravely says, “Me too.” Life somehow becomes sweeter when we stop pretending we are carrying life alone.
So I find myself wondering:
Has the church been a place where you have experienced friendships rooted in shared vulnerability and deep trust?
One place this question has surfaced for me is in the practice of praying for the people. Increasingly, it seems as though we must ask permission to pray for someone—or perhaps more accurately, permission to name their struggle aloud.
I understand why.
Privacy matters. Dignity matters. We do not want to expose what someone is not ready to share.
But I also remember when I was younger that certain realities—breast cancer, hysterectomies, mental health struggles, addiction, infertility, family fractures—often lived in quiet corners. They were the unspoken prayers, or perhaps the carefully coded requests. We knew something was happening, but rarely spoke of it plainly.
In many ways, I am grateful we have grown. There are conversations today that once felt impossible to name in church, and that matters.
Yet I also wonder if, at times, we have maintained a kind of self-protection that quietly limits transparency.
When my aunt was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, she courageously agreed to have it placed in our church bulletin. It was not an easy decision. She felt exposed, vulnerable in a way that made her deeply uncomfortable at first.
But what followed surprised her.
The feeling of exposure was quickly met with care, compassion, warm meals, friendly visits, and the steady comfort of knowing people were praying for her. She often said it felt nice to be prayed for.
As her illness progressed, she reflected on what sharing her diagnosis had opened up in her life. At one point she said, “It took sharing my disease to really know people and to let people know me.”
Her words have stayed with me.
Perhaps true community requires something costly from us: a willingness to ask for help, to ask for prayer, to let others know where life feels tender or broken, and to receive support from those who long to carry burdens with us.
Maybe the invitation is not simply to pray for one another, but to trust one another enough to be prayed for.
I do not ask this with judgment, but curiosity.
What would happen if our churches became places where vulnerability was met not with discomfort, but compassion? Where asking for prayer was not a sign of weakness, but belonging? Where we discovered, again and again, the sacred relief of hearing someone say:
“What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
