Has convenience gone too far? US church has drive-thru prayer

Originally published in All Christian News.com

If you don’t have time to go to church, you can always go to the Sonrise Worship Center in Lutz, Florida and follow the signs which read “Need God’s Guidance?” Drive-Thru Prayer: Turn Here,” and “Free Prayer Ahead,” and get someone to pray for you without leaving the comfort of your vehicle.

According to the church’s Facebook page, response to the signs and the drive-thru prayer have been most encouraging because motorists stop for genuine spiritual comfort when they are confused about what to do about life in general. They stop by rather like they would stop to get a cheeseburger if they were hungry.

Sonrise Worship Center’s pastor, Tyson Prater said that “A lady was on her way to the hospital, as her husband had just had a heart attack, and she was literally following the ambulance to the hospital, saw our sign, pulled in and asked us to pray for her and her husband.”

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Prater goes on to say that prayer is not the only thing the church offers to the motorists because they can also get a free cup of coffee to warm their bodies while their souls are being healed through prayer.

Another Florida church, the Pentecostal congregation of the Christian Life Center, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, also started offering drive-thru prayer services on Friday evenings last month.

The Christian Life Center Church has volunteers who will pray for you whether the matter is big or small and they say that they have served about 150 people so far. Pastor Sol Levy says that many motorists who use the drive-thru prayer service have never been inside a church and they don’t find the drive-thru service quite so intimidating.

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Apparently the drive-thru prayer service’s busiest time is around 5:30 p.m. when motorists are on their way home from work and have maybe had a stress filled day or week at work and want to feel relaxed for the weekend.

At the moment the drive-thru service is only available on Friday night because the church fears that to open the drive-thru prayer service at other times might discourage people from actually coming inside the church, which is the church’s main objective in the first place.

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Don’t worry if you don’ live in Florida, you can get these drive-thru prayer services in Texas, Georgia, Utah, Michigan and California.