Dan R. Crawford's Page

I remember once making a request of my parents that was so out of sync with the plans for the family, that they just stared at me, no verbal response, just a glare. Some may say that my request was unanswered. It took me years to learn that my request was answered. The answer was in their glare – a silent “no.” The more I studied prayer, the more I discovered that Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer in his teaching on the subject. In spite of both secular and church pressure to admit to…

Is it possible that Thanksgiving is more than a holiday – more than turkey, football, family, etc? For many years, people of faith have used the acronym, ACTS as a guide for prayer – “A” being for adoration; “C” being for confession; and “S” being for supplication. The “T” in that acronym stands for Thanksgiving – as demonstrated in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” and in 1 Timothy 2:1 “Therefore I exhort first of all that…

I took my pastor to lunch recently, celebrating Pastor Appreciation Month. In the course of the conversation, I asked him how he felt the specific call of God to be a pastor, since he had previously been a Student Minister and a Church Starter. His answer was similar to mine – an early call to vocational ministry, made specific in time. I had taken a “Pastor Appreciation” survey on social media, assuming that pastors would want their church members to pray for them. I asked, "What should be…

It had been awhile since I had counted, but the recent purchase of more books from a used book dealer, sent me back to the shelves to count how many books I possess on the subject of prayer. The new count is 481. A bit excessive for the normal minister/seminary professor, but not for one who for many years occupied one of only two fully endowed chairs of prayer in theological education in the world. Do I agree with everything in these books? Absolutely, not. Am I a better professor/person…