Tales from the Car Show Prayer Booth
By REV. JOHN TOMLIN, Special to The Paper
Not many preachers own a Corvette. To put my inherited 1961 red convertible to good use, I began hosting a car show prayer booth last year. I chat cars for a bit with folks and then I ask what we can pray for.
When you talk to the show car owners, you discover a hidden truth. After complimenting a beautiful vehicle, they respond with a “Thanks, but…” and tell you about what needs to be fixed next. For example, underneath its shiny chrome, my Corvette needs its transmission repaired. All the effort to make these vehicles look good cannot mask the truth that there is work to be done underneath the surface.
When I ask passersby at car shows “How can I pray for you today?” the usual response is “We’re fine” or “I’m okay.” The longer we chat, however, the more people reveal that underneath their polished exteriors, something is broken.
At the 6th Annual Newnan Police Department Car/Truck/Off-Road Show this past October, a lot of hidden brokenness surfaced. One young family came along, and a middle-school-age boy pointed to his mother and said, “She needs prayer.” After he walked on with his siblings to another car, his mother shared that finances were rough, and they were about to lose their home. After we prayed together, she whispered a trembling “thank you” and walked away, dabbing her eyes. I’ll never know what happens next in her story. What I do know is that this child of God’s prayer is now before the throne of the One for whom all the problems overwhelming her are not a problem at all. And I know she knows it.
How can I pray for you? As I talked with people, I would write down their prayer requests on a note card, pray, and then place the card in the prayer bucket. One family’s “We’re okay.” turned into them sharing about the loss of an adult son a few years back. We talked less about the shiny, orange dragster they had on display than we did their other car, the green one, their late son’s car, which is sitting at home in disrepair. Working on it is just too difficult. Lord, please be with them as they grieve.
I prayed with folks about their cancer. I prayed with a girl whose father is in prison. I prayed with people grieving. Neighbor after neighbor shared their hidden woes. A no-nonsense police officer running the event was struggling to allow herself to be more friendly than usual. I can only guess what human ugliness she sees in her daily routine. I could tell that she desperately needed her love for her community to be recharged that Saturday. She was too busy to stop for prayer. I prayed for her anyway.
Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (NIV). I have no idea about the regular prayer habits or faith of the people I pray with at car shows. I have a prayer bucket out there, not a baptismal font. My hope is that the conversation I lead people in turns into a regular thing and a healthy relationship between them and the One able to see behind our shiny, pretty exteriors and knows best how to fix the brokenness we all have underneath. Amen.
The Rev. John Tomlin is the director of FaithWorks USA, Inc., a nonprofit ministry supporting Christians in their faith journey on the job. Visit faithworksusa.org.
