These students needed someone praying for them...

It started with four students. They agreed to meet at the bottom of the main stairway for prayer 15 minutes before school every Wednesday morning. In a month it had grown to a dozen students. In three months 30-40 students were there praying together every week. One teacher passing by every week and amazed by what he saw nicknamed the group “The Stairway to Heaven.”

Just as the whole school started to notice how important prayer and faith was to these young Christians, the arguing began. It started with a disagreement about how to pray. The students who started the group prayed quietly not drawing any attention to what they were doing. The people who joined the group later prayed loudly, with hands raised. The whole situation reached a boiling point when some new people joined the group and began praying loudly in tongues and telling others their style of praying was the real way to pray.

The prayer group became a fighting group. They argued about how to pray more than they prayed. Each group of students had a way of praying they thought was right and comfortable for them. They disagreed about how to pray and what type of prayer was appropriate in the hallway of the school. The disagreement became an endless argument. Lots of harsh words and judgmental comments flew back and forth between them.

As the whole school watched they spoke unkindly about each other and questioned the motives of the other praying students. Attempts were made to reconcile the warring parties but the battle lines were drawn and no one was backing down. Finally they became two separate prayer groups. The loud pray-ers started a new prayer group up on the second floor while the quiet pray-ers stayed at the bottom of the stairs. The arguments were replaced by cold stares and silence. In two separate locations both groups decreased in size. By the end of school neither group was meeting for prayer.

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