Before commencing group prayer each person is usually queried for their personal prayer requests. If the request is highly personal people sometimes say "I have an unspoken." (You don't say I have an unspoken prayer request, just I have an unspoken. The final two words are also unspoken.)
Announcing an unspoken prayer request leaves the rest of the group no choice but to speculate as to what could possibly be the matter. If a girl has requested "an unspoken" you may assume she needs prayer for her Woman Bits. If a guy has requested "an unspoken" you may assume he needs prayer for chronic masturbating.
The unspoken prayer request is meant to offset gossip via prayer request (as previously discussed here) but manages to spark gossip anyway. Unspoken-prayer-request gossip is even juicier than normal prayer-request gossip thanks to its speculative nature. If you have been entrenched in Christian culture for awhile then you know what will be assumed when you announce your unspoken need and often you will just let it go un-prayed for rather than invite any dirty presumptions.
2 comments:
You forgot to mention how, if they have a trusted friend with them who knows what the unspoken is, they will nod knowingly to show that they're in on it, but will not break their friend's trust.
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