How to Start or Re-boot your Prayerlife
Every year between Ascension and Pentecost the church asks us to pray for 5 people to come to faith. This is an opportunity to try praying regularly or to restart after a break.
Sometimes when we try and pray it is very difficult to get the conversation with God going. We sit they and say ‘Er, Hello God, Er, are you there? Er, Hello it's me again …’ Christians have had this problem since prayer began. The Jews before us also had this problem so they devised a way of getting the conversation going. If we think of our own conversations they always start with a standard form, ’Hello, how are you?… Nice weather etc.’ If we didn’t use these forms we would find it hard to have a conversation. The daily office is a way of saying ’Hello, how are you?’ to God. The daily office can be long or short. The readings and Psalms give us a starting point to begin to pray.
All you need to pray in this way is a Bible and a list of readings called a lectionary. The parish magazine has a lectionary every month. If you used this every day for four years you would read almost all the Bible, even the weird bits and there are plenty of them.
The other main aspect of daily prayer is that we are praying as a community, not just the people of Yate but millions of people all over the world who are using a similar form. We are also praying with Jesus, Mary, and his Apostles, everyone throughout the history of Christianity. That is why during some of the prayers we use the plural ‘and also with you’ even if we are alone. We are recognizing that we are praying together with the whole Church.
Prayer is not easy. Even priests don’t find it easy.
To help us pray together we have created a shorter version of Morning and Evening Prayer which is prayed all across the Church of England. Praying in this way should take about 15 min all you will need is a Bible, a list of readings and the prayerbook.
Each morning except Sunday we pray together on Facebook using this book, so you can follow along and learn as you pray. The prayer books and reading lists are in each of our churches and cost £1. You can download each of the books below for free. There is a link to our new Facebook prayer page simply click the link and like the page to join in.
Clikc the Link here to join our new Facebook page and join us for Morning prayer live at 730 am or anytime after that to watch the recording
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