Core Practice #3: Prayer

This past weekend we explored together our third Core Practice, that of prayer. We talked about our different experiences when it comes to prayer, both personal and collective. Jesus taught us both to close ourselves away in prayer ... "when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret" [Matt 6:6] - though this was said in contrast to the 'hypocrites' who love to be seen publicly praying - but also how important it is to pray with others "again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven" [Matt 18:19].

The picture of the chief 'practices' of the early church given to us by Luke, includes a devotion to prayer. "They devoted themselves to .... prayer" [Acts 2:42]. Here are some of the other comments (in no particular order) that came out of our conversation and that led us into a time of prayer:-

• For some, nature/creation plays a significant part in inspiring us to pray - let's get outdoors, even in summer (editor's comment!)
• prayer is the dynamic and expression of our relationship to the Father, through Jesus, and as such is to be without ceasing, throughout the day
• it is valuable for us to pray aloud - especially when the emphasis is upon praise and spiritual warfare
• prayer helps us to overcome through our connection to the reality of God and his power at work in our lives - so helpful and necessary when we are struggling
• we must learn to trust God for who he is before what he does - is this reflected in the balance of our prayers (i.e. less about asking and more about thanking)?
• prayer is communication and needs to be both ways
• do we have a good balance of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving as well as Supplication (asking) in our prayer lives?
• prayer is best when we come with an attitude of openness and surrender to God
• remember the promise of Jesus when we agree together in prayer - AMEN!
• our imagination, which is God-given, plays a great part in our prayers is helping us to see Christ ministering in and through us - as we lay on hands, effectively so does he
• do we come with no preconceived agenda or expected outcome but are we learning to trust in God?
• prayer is arguably the principal demonstration of faith - as Jesus taught about faithfulness and perseverance in prayer, he immediately goes on to ask, "when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" [Luke 18:8]
• how we are with God in prayer will often be reflected in how we are with people - if we're not giving approval, appreciation or acknowledging mistakes with people around us, chances are we're not doing the same with God
• for some, the use of music and songs can be real helpful in helping us to focus upon the Lord
• the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we don't know how to pray - let us open ourselves up to this "Spirit-reality" - this may include prophetic prayers as we pray into the revelations given
• when we are struggling to pray, this is when we need most the discipline of gathering with others (1 or more) to own the struggle and to invite them to pray with us - sadly all too often, these are times when we pull away from one another
  

I may have missed some things and I certainly invite others to comment. More importantly, unless this leads us to pray it is of no consequence. Jesus desires nothing less than that we become people of prayer who know their God and do great exploits. As a community we want to build patterns into our lives that lead us to pray with each other on a regular basis through the week.