In almost 5 years at St Peter's there have been very, very few discouragements, though my attempts to increase our corporate prayer life really do seem to have fallen on stony ground. But I'm not going to give up: when we pray, God hears and acts - and I'm sure that we'd all love to see God's hand at work amongst us, our community and through our Mission Partners.
At two of the churches I've visited in recent weeks, prayer was on the agenda. All Saints, Crowborough has a 5 year plan to increase prayer and to pray for revival. St John's has a sermon series on prayer, and had a very encouraging response to a call to prayer at its last monthly prayer meeting.
I'm praying that the Praying for Mission course in June will begin to stimulate a desire to pray, and from September we will have a monthly church family prayer meeting. I don't know when the best time for this will be - perhaps we need to have various slots (Tuesday evening, Saturday Morning). Perhaps WWW and the Thursday Bible study could devote one session a month to a greater focus on prayer.
One of the things I need to spend more time thinking about is how we teach new Christians to pray. Talking to Father is such a vital part of the Christian life, but it's not easy - especially when it comes to corporate prayer - many of us were privileged to be taught as teenagers when we were bold and enthusiastic to try new things. It's much harder for adults, but no less important.
Ideas on any of this can be posted here...
When I was first asked to lead in prayer I wanted to say NO and I didn't know what to do: so I went to Jesus and in the book of Titus 2 God tells us that the older women of the church are to teach the younger women what is good. So I went to an older women of the church (I was young at that time!) and asked her to help me to pray; Doris Burchett spent an afternoon teaching me how to pray. I was truly blessed by God that day.
ReplyDeleteI still get very nervous when praying at bible study or leading, (I don't know why!) praying is an integral part of a believer's life: It would be God's true blessing if we at St Peter's find praying as easy as breathing! We must try to get over our shyness.
Cathy
Ah, Cath - you set a great example! (and there's absolutely no sarcasm here!!. Willing to take a risk, and stepping out in accordance with Biblical advice. So how about a few blog readers following Cath's example?!
ReplyDelete