Practice Introduction & Teaching
Prayer isn’t a stage where you perform, it’s a place to be honest. Prayer is a key ingredient in our formation and apprenticeship to Christ. It’s the place where we are present with Jesus and the place where we become like Jesus. Prayer is the place where we can bring all parts of us before Jesus who welcomes all parts of us. Prayer is a place of transformation where we are transformed by Jesus and then become a transforming presence with Jesus in the lives of those around us. It takes time to cultivate this type of “transformed and transforming presence” that becomes a place of transformation for us, and a means to serve those around us through our own transformation and presence.
The disciples of Jesus didn’t know how to pray, so they asked Jesus to teach them, and He did, not only with His words, but through the Scriptures and with His very life. The life of Jesus was filled with prayer as a means of communion with His father and as a means of connection with God’s people. The life of a believer should be filled with prayer as a means of communion and connection.
Over the next three months as Community Groups we’re going to sit at the feet of Jesus together and learn how to pray. We’re going to practice prayer as a means of being with God through contemplating the Lord’s Prayer individually and together. We’re going to practice prayer as a means of being with God in pain through the practice of Lamention. We’re going to experience prayer as a means of being with God with and for others through practicing prayer as intercession.
We’re all likely at different places in cultivating our prayer life, but as we journey together over this next three months I believe we all will grow in our apprenticeship to Jesus as we learn from Him and from one another in the practice of praying!
MONTHLY PRAYER PRACTICE FOCUS
JUNE
BEING WITH GOD
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus offered this prayer as instruction on how apprentices of Jesus should pray. For some of us, what has been known as the Lord’s prayer has been an integral part of our formation and apprenticeship of Jesus but for many “praying like this” as Jesus instructed hasn’t really been a part of our spiritual journey at all.
CLICK HERE for Contemplation Practice Details
JULY
BEING WITH GOD IN PAIN & SUFFERING
Over the course of July the Groups prayer practice will include reading, meditating and discussing prayers of Lamentation throughout Scripture. We’ll include selections from Psalms that are personal Lament’s as well as some that are communal Lament’s. Additionally we’ll spend some time considering and reflecting upon Jeremiah’s writings in Lamentations. We’ll wrap up the month by considering and reflecting upon Jesus’ Lament in the Garden of Gethsemane from the Gospel of Mattthew.
CLICK HERE for Lamentation Practice Details
August
BEING WITH GOD WITH & FOR OTHERS
As the Body of Christ we have been given the powerful tool of Intercession as a means by which we can serve one another. Scripture is rich with promises of God as provider, peace, healer, victory and so much more. Prayers of Intercession have been offered by God’s people for centuries as a means to be present with God and one another in the midst of need. In intercession we are reminded of both our need for God and His availability to us.
CLICK HERE for Intercession Practice Details