What does prayer mean to you?
What are the problems that prayer poses? What does it promise?
In June 2019, Touchstone offered a special issue devoted to some of the questions related to prayer. We invite you to respond to that issue, or indeed simply offer your thoughts here. (Here is Peter and Rob’s article to get your thoughts flowing: click here.)
Just click below to join the conversation!
I found the article on preparing prayer for public worship worth discussing. It would be good to raise such issues within the congregation. What causes the prayers to be spiritually helpful? Are unison prayers of more value than those spoken by the leader? In what way does public prayer differ from individual prayer? Do we need a prayer of confession, or not? What is better: specific prayers for persons, situations, or more general prayers? The article did an excellent job of highlighting the important work of preparing prayer for services each week.
Thanks for this, Allan. These are great discussion starters!
Thank you both for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. It gives me much to think about.
Blessings,
Iris (Weaver) Murtha
Rob and Peter~
I had to send you a quick note, simply to mention that I really quite enjoyed your correspondence conversation on prayer in the latest “Touchstone.” I think that kind of honest, personable format makes for very compelling reading. You might consider encouraging more of that same format!
The phrase that often comes to mind when we’re discussing the use of public prayer comes from Ecclesiastes chapter five: “God is in heaven and thou art upon earth, so let thy words be few.” –Well put, isn’t it?
Summer blessings,
~ted.
Ted Harrison (Rev. Dr.)
Trinity United Church
705-474-3310
111 McIntyre St E
North Bay, Ontario, Canada
P1B1C5
Warm thanks, Ted. Yes, that line from Ecclesiastes is perfect!
Thanks for this thoughtful conversation/exchange. It is a pertinent question. Being of a different “reformed” tradition, I was not exposed to much of the written prayer culture that is talked about. This plus my experience as a Christ follower places prayer in symbiotic relationship with the experience one has of God. Prayer is part of how we express our relationship with God; we express joy, gratitude, disappointment, frustration. We plead, agree, disagree etc as well as being intentional about listening to Gods voice too, in tandem with the Bible. And because we are not equal, prayer is also a means of adopting the right posture – one of humility. Prayer is much more than “words” – often times our hearts cry out (voiceless) and at other time the Spirit gives us the words/thoughts to pray. One of the misconceptions of prayer is, I believe, that many folk think that it is the prerogative of the clergy to pray or rather that only their prayers have any “worth” before God. This is a fallacy and needs to be addressed if we are to enable those in our pews to believe that they too can pray (sans the fancy wording that they often hear in church) and that they, as much as anyone else. have access to God’s throne of grace. At the most basic level. prayer is a conversation with our maker. There is much that I would like to write about and see discussed on this important area of a believers life. Thanks for posting and opening up the conversation.