We on the Anchor worship team once had a habit of saying to the congregation, “Let’s all bow for a quick word of prayer.” Or something like that. The important word was “quick.” Pastor Tim told us he would prefer that we not use “quick” and “prayer” together. It sounded like we wanted to rush through “prayer” to get to more interesting stuff. And he was exactly right.

And so, for the past couple of years, we’ve tried to wean ourselves away from that, and we’ve succeeded pretty well. But it’s fascinating how easily the word “quick” wants to keep inserting itself.

• “Before the service starts, let’s get the worship team together for a quick prayer.”
• Prior to a potluck: “Let’s all bow for a quick prayer, and then you can line for up for your food.”
• “Before we launch into our board meeting agenda, Bill, would say a quick prayer for the meeting?”

Tonight, eight of us from Anchor went to the Union Chapel United Brethren church for a performance of Godspell by a group from Huntington University (my alma mater). It was very good. My brother Rick saw it last week and wrote on his blog that he enjoyed it, but found one of the performers to be annoying. Several of us were on the lookout, but couldn’t determine which one Rick was talking about. None of the cast members struck us as annoying.

Chris Kuntz, Anchor’s former worship leader, is now worship leader at Union Chapel. He introduced the group, and when they finished, he came up again to say a few words before the group did one last number. And Chris said something like, “In a moment I’m going to say a quick prayer, and then we’ll hear one more song.” Tim Bauman and I made contact and just smiled. Chris, who had, with Tim’s promptings, helped us nearly eradicate “quick” from our prayer lingo, had relapsed. He was still doing “quick” prayers.

Pastor Tim would be appalled.

We’ve got something pretty neat going on with these other four churches in our neighborhood. We held joint Sunday night services during Lent, and did a neighborhood Vacation Bible School a few weeks ago (the Mennonites hosted it, but Marsha from our church was the director).

Today we had a picnic in the park a couple of streets over from Anchor. Four of the five churches participated. Grace Presbyterian headed this up. They rented a big grill and organized a variety of games. It was nice. I’m thoroughly enjoying getting acquainted with these fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Fundamentalists fear being somehow contaminated or theologically compromised if they collaborate with other churches. I think there is some of that among us United Brethren–not fundamentalists (though we have our contingent), but conservative evangelicals. We’re leery, at least people “in the know” (as in, mostly ministers). Fortunately, this isn’t an issue at Anchor. Nor, I think, is it generally an issue with the rank-and-file UBs, who don’t “know enough” theologically to erect barriers between themselves and other Christians.

Not that Anchor would link arms with just anybody. We’re talking about just five of the churches in our zip code; there are more than that. Five like-minded local congregations. Church of Christ, United Methodist, Mennonite, Presbyterian, and United Brethren. There are other United Brethren churches in our city, but none in our neighborhood. Strategically, it makes sense to link arms with these four other churches. And so, we are.

More United Brethren churches need to do this type of thing. Larger churches don’t “need” to, from a strategical standpoint, or at least don’t think they need to. They have the resources to do things themselves, and have more of a “we can do it ourselves” mentality. In general. But for smaller churches, like Anchor, it makes a huge amount of sense.