It is important to note that Dr. Gordon believes there are spiritual problems in prayer that relate to every age. He is simply trying to diagnose the specific problems that are particular to our age in addition to those present in every age.

I am here at the Reformation Worship Conference at Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, Georgia. It has been a great blessing so far. T. David Gordon gave a very thought-provoking talk entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Pray.”

Dr. Gordon wrote a book Why Johnny Can’t Preach, which is why they asked him to speak on this topic.

Dr. Gordon referred to 1 Cor. 14 and Mt. 6 in order to prove that prayer should be thoughtful, mentally rewarding, and efficient. Then, he went explained some aspects of our culture that influence us and applied them to prayer.

His observations were as follow:

1. We live in an a-literate culture. We can read, but we do not.

2. We live in a paedocentric culture, that is, we have a culture that prizes youth above experience and seeks to retain youth.

3. Youth tend to live in an adolescent ghetto. They have access to the whole world through the internet, but they tend to talk only to people their own age on their internet.

4. We are a distracted culture.

How do these things apply to prayer?

1. Writing produces a much greater vocabulary than oral communication. Writing often will produce a greater vocabulary. Since we do not read or write very often, we have difficulty expressing our thoughts in prayer with efficiency and accuracy.

2. Youth is especially self-centered, and thus a paedo-centric culture leads to focus on self rather than God.

3. We tend to think that we need a special formula for the youth, and we cannot conceive that they would profit from the same things from which adults profit.

It is important to note that Dr. Gordon believes there are spiritual problems in prayer that relate to every age. He is simply trying to diagnose the specific problems that are particular to our age in addition to those present in every age.

Here are a few things that he proposed to help us with this problem:

1. Read books devoted to prayer.

2. When you study, convert what you just studied to prayer.

3. Write out your prayers.

4. Experiment with the collect. The collect contains an address, a statement of an attribute of God, a petition, a reason, and a Christian conclusion. If we work on writing collects, it will help us to pray more accurately and more mental satisfaction in our longer prayers.

I thought this last suggestion was particularly helpful and might aid children to learn how to pray. I’m not sure if I agree with all of Dr. Gordon’s points, but it was stimulating and will be fruitful for future thinking on this matter.

What about you? Do you think modern media affects our ability to pray? If so, how would you fight against that in our own lives and in the lives of our children?

Wes White is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is currently serving as the Pastor of New Covenant Spearfish Presbyterian Church, Spearfish, South Dakota. This article originally appeared on his web site http://weswhite.net and is used with permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]