From the Pastor’s Desk – March 2010
Prayer—part two
Last month as part of this newsletter series on spiritual disciples I reflected upon prayer in general. This month I want to explain a couple of prayer practices. It needs to be stated that there is not one proper way to pray. Prayer can take many forms and shapes. My goal this month is simply to talk about a handful of types of prayers or ways to pray so that if you are so lead by the spirit, you may want to investigate or attempt to use some of these forms of prayer.
Breath Prayer—this is a way that Christians have sought to live out the scripture verse, ‘pray without ceasing.’ A breath prayer is using a phrase over and over again, so that it just become a natural part of your everyday life. For you seek to continual repeat the phrase over and over as you breathe. The most common breath prayer is the Jesus prayer which says, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Other examples of breath prayers are: ‘Jesus let me receive your grace.’ ‘Lord Jesus, help me feel loved.’ ‘Teach me gentleness, Father.’ Notice that all these are short. This is so that one can say it in one breath—thus the name breath prayer
ACTS—this is an acroyonm. It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplications. This has been a somewhat common way to teach people to pray. ACTS is easy to remember and it gives several parts of what our prayer to God should include. We being a prayer with adoration (O Lord, you are wonderful and your mercy abounds). Then, one moves to confession (have mercy on me for I am a sinner and have failed you). Then you move on to thanksgiving (thank you O Lord, for the blessings you have given to me and my family). Then finally, supplications which are request or intercession for others (Lord, be with all who morn the loss of a loved one). ACTS is a helpful technique to help people cover different aspects of prayer.
Centering Prayer—is a type of prayer that focuses more upon silence and contemplation. Centering Prayer is a way to attempt to quiet the mind and center oneself upon God without words. This allows one to come into the presence of God in a way where one can be more attentive to simply being with God and not be distracted with feeling the need to talk or use words to communicate with God. The goal is essentially to open oneself up to God and simply be with God. Normally people try to do centering prayer for 20 minutes a day a couple of times a day. For those not used to silence, it can be a difficult way to experience and communicate with God as it requires one to be quiet and still. See the box for books that give details as to more specifics about how to begin centering prayers and ways to quiet one’s mind.
Active Prayers—these are types of prayers that involve some type of activity along with praying. Some of the active prayers are:
- prayer walking—being intentional about praying while walking sometimes using this time to pray for neighbors as
you walk past their homes.
- Labyrinths—this is not a maze, but a wandering path that symbolizes our journey in life. Walking this path is a way
to meditate upon our lives and pray to God. As you journey to the center, it is a way to shed all the stuff that burdens
us down so that in the center it is to be a place where we encounter God.
- Prayer beads—most people think about prayer beads as a Roman Catholic thing—the Rosary. However, someone
did a Lutheran version of a rosary. The goal with prayer beads is that each bead is a symbol of something that you
pray. This is a good thing for those of us who like to figit and need to
do something with our hands.
- Prayer knitting—I am beginning to see more of things like this, where
people who knit or do something that is some
what repitative use this as a time to reflect upon their day or a time to
be intentional about praying as they knit.
There are also some who knit prayer shawls that then go to people who
are sick or have some need.
This is not an exhaustive list, but is a starting point. The key for me in prayer is not how we pray, but that we pray. These are just some of the ways to pray that you may want to consider using. Also, sometimes it is good to experiment with other forms of prayer and other types of spiritual disciplines to seek to continue to grow in your spiritual walk.
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