The people of God do many things in the world — serving, offering forgiveness, seeking reconciliation, spurring one another on in good deeds to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s love.
From what do we draw to fuel this work? How do we know which direction to go? Where do we go to know God’s will?
We pray.
Christians gather together to pray and worship God, committing to sharing our lives with each other. And we also go out into the world and pray continually that God would show up in our lives and encourage us, fill us, and lead us.
But we don’t just become a people of prayer by believing that we should. No, we have to put it into practice.
This Fall, at St. James Presbyterian Church, we’re going to spend time practicing prayer together. We are going to seek regular opportunities to prayer in our gathered time (Sundays, weekly programs) and on our own (at home, at work, with friends, by ourselves).
In order to begin this process of practicing and forming ourselves into people who more naturally pray, we are going to start a new Prayer Practice in our Sunday worship. This is something we will do together in our worship services at the traditional time of the “Prayers of the People.” We’ll pray a common prayer together and then lift up our specific prayers to God, both vocally and in silence. And we’ll close with the Lord’s Prayer.
Taking this model, we will also print a version of this short “liturgy” in your bulletin each week for you to take home and keep close at hand, to pray and get about the work in your day to day. “Liturgy” means “the work of the people” – we are setting out to do some work together in this upcoming season, work and practice that will hopefully guide is deeper into the presence of God, in all time and places.