#357. The prayer version of "You Stay Classy San Diego."

In the movie “Anchorman,” Will Ferrell’s news anchor character always signed off the air with the same phrase, “You stay classy San Diego.” I thought that was funny and recently my friend Stan reminded me that sometimes we do the same things with our prayers.

Have you ever done that? Instead of just closing a prayer with “amen,” you throw in a little spice? A little flair? Like putting a big loop in your signature when signing things, whoomp, there it is!*

I know what my prayer sign off is, “Lord, thank you for this day and everything you blessed us with.” A pastor I’ve heard of likes to end his prayer with, “May your grace, mercy and peace be with each and every one of us, both now and evermore. Amen.” I like the addition of the word “evermore” because it feels a little medieval to me, like maybe I should be holding a sword when I say that word. Is there anyway I could punctuate my sign off with that? Would it look weird if when I prayed I said,

“Lord, thank you for this day and everything you blessed us with. Evermore.”

That’s cool, right? Maybe not, but I had a few other thoughts on this topic.

1. Context doesn’t matter.
One of the things I love about prayer sign offs is that what you said immediately before the sign off doesn’t matter. Regardless of the topic of your prayer, you’re signing it off with the same phrase. That’s like ending the movie “Saving Private Ryan” with ten minutes of comedy from that dude Balki on the show, “Perfect Strangers.” You’ll throw a fancy sign off on the end of a prayer about a pig winning a blue ribbon at the state fair or a casual sign off at the end of a tragic hot air balloon mishap. It makes no sense.

2. Here comes the end.
The great thing about having a favorite prayer sign off is that your friends know that once they hear that, you’re about to stop praying. As you ramble about the verbal countryside, throwing out the word “just” and repeating God’s names a million times, they can all wait for those magical words that mean, “he’s done.” (That was a test. If you laughed at that you should be ashamed of yourself. For a real Christian there’s no such thing as a “too long prayer.” That’s an oxymoron.)

3. Sometimes that’s all you’ll say.
There are times at our house when my two daughters are already trying to eat their chicken strips (roughly 87% of the food they consume), the phone is ringing, the dishwasher is running and all manner of chaos is breaking out. I admit, I’ll go right to my sign off. Instead of praying, I’ll just start and finish with the sign off. I didn’t really realize I was doing that until today. That’s like writing a letter that only has a “p.s.” in it. I am such an awesome Christian.

It’s weird how many prayer posts are on this site. If someone asked me what I thought was funny about the church, I doubt I would say “Prayer. Prayer is hilarious.” But there it is, prayer sign offs are something funny we do.

Mine is pretty boring, but I would love to hear what you do or hear one you’ve listened to before at church.

*That’s right, I said it.
Tag team back again. Check into wreckin, let’s begin. Party on party people let me hear some noise, DC’s in the house jump, jump rejoice. Says there’s a party over here, a party over there, wave your hands in the air, shake your derriere. These three words when you’re getting busy, Whoomp There it is. Hit me.