Several years ago the pastors in our city were asked to put together a rotation for each of us to come in and give an invocation at the city council meetings. It has been a privilege to do so.

In one two year stretch we had a different mayor who came to our clergy group and asked us to not pray in the name of Jesus. It was a request that fell on deaf ears.

It is not that saying the words “in the name of Jesus” or something like that create some “magic formula.” It is about relationship. I told that particular mayor if the imam from the mosque came and prayed at the city council meeting he was going to pray to Allah. He would not change that name and I would not ask him to. But when I pray, prayer is a conversation and I am in conversation with Someone specific.

If I were addressing the mayor, she would want me to use her name at some point just so she would know she was in the conversation.

When we pray, it is a conversation. Who am I talking to?

When I pray in the way Jesus demonstrated to his disciples, there is the example of using “Our Father.” It is turning our hearts and attention in a specific direction. Directing the conversation sets us in a “kingdom configuration.”

As Dallas Willard writes, “…when we pray we must take time to fix our minds upon God and orient our world around him.”