Resources for PRayer

Created by Pastor Amanda Nevin

Books:

Timothy Keller: Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God

Mark Labberton: The Dangerous Act of Worship

Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline

Phyllis Tickle: The Divine Hours (there are 4 books- one for each season of the year).

Sybil MacBeth:  Praying in Color

Forms of Prayer:

·        The ACTS prayer: Adoration- giving praise to God for the glory for who he is; Confession- we come before God with those things that we have done wrong, we confess our sins to God; Thanksgiving- giving thanks for God’s goodness, mercy, grace, for the blessings we have, for friends, family, etc. Supplication- we pray for others, ourselves, for the world, for our leaders, for anything we can think of- we come on behalf of another.

·       Alphabet prayer- think of one or two letters of the alphabet and structure your prayer with words that begin with those letters.

·       Journaling Prayer- for those who like to write- or even if you don’t, buy a notebook of some sort and write out your prayers until prayer becomes an important part of your routine and daily life

·       Prayer Books- there are many resources and books that have written prayers in them, use those as ways to pray or for topics for prayer

·       Pray through the Psalms- pick a psalm, read through it and then use it as a prayer, exchanging words like you for me, or adding “Lord, may these words be the words of my heart and life.”

·       Litany Prayer- Psalm 136 begins a line and then states: “his mercy endures forever.” In your own prayers say a few lines and then have one line that is repeated. Another example “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord Have mercy.”

·       Lectio Devina- which means divine reading. Pick a passage of scripture read it out loud once; read it a second time and ask God to reveal a word or a phrase that you need to hear; read it a third time and ask God to show you how to respond to that word or phrase that God has given to you; and then read it a fourth time and ask God to seal that word or phrase into your heart and mind as you go about your day  and apply it to the different situations that you find yourself in.

·       The Lord’s Prayer – model your prayers after the Lord’s prayer.

·       Simple Prayer- involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to God. We do not pretend to be more holy, purer, or saintlier than we are; we simply come to God warts and all, just as we are and share our concerns.

·       Daily Examen: prayerful reflection on the day in order to detect God’s presence in your life during the day. It is a time to look back and reflect on the events of the day, offer them to Jesus in prayer and see how God was moving in your day. Here are 5 ways to begin to practice the Examen:

o   Become aware of God’s presence with you.

o   Review the day with gratitude

o   Pay Attention to your emotions

o   Choose one feature of the day and pray about it

o   Look toward tomorrow and invite Jesus into tomorrow and what may be.

·       Color Prayer: This is a little tricker to describe. It invite us to grab some drawing tools, a paper, doodling ideas, names of God, things we want to pray for and then invite time and space into your life. Put on some music and begin to doodle, “take a line for a walk” artist Paul Klee used to say about how he painted. Don’t worry about having a picture in mind, write words down that come to mind, doodle around the words, let the colors you have express your emotions. Then use that as a way to offer a prayer to God. (This is great for people who like to draw, kids, people who may not be able to communicate verbally, or just to try something totally different—check out Sybil’s books if you want more ideas).