Being a praying people –Becoming a praying community

It has been said that “a church that walks together with God is a church that will thrive and draw others to it”, and so part of our mission and our call must be to become a community of prayer.

It can be easy to become discouraged when we pray on our own. There are competing demands on our time, we may not be in the mood, things crop up or we simply forget. We may not even think we have to pray every day. Jesus, though, told us we must persevere with prayer.

When his disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he replied with “Our Father…”. Christian prayer is always “we” prayer – We are the Body of Christ. When we pray, we are never alone, and we pray as part of the Body of Christ.

To become a praying community, we are being asked to commit to pray at least the Psalm prayer for the day and the Lord’s prayer (Stage 1), “Day by day with Ss Mark and Anne”, wherever we may be, so that even if we are physically alone, we know that we are always praying with others - with the Body of Christ here in Heyside and Royton and indeed with the wider Church of Christ.

Evelyn Underhill, a twentieth century spiritual writer wrote, “The world is full of jangling noises. You know that there are better melodies. But you will never transmit the heavenly music to others unless you yourselves are tuned in to it…giving…it careful and undivided attention during part of each day… you must yourselves be spiritually alive.”

By God’s grace may way we walk togetheras a community of prayer seeking to: stay close to Jesus; live up to our calling as his friends; tune into the heavenly music so we might share that music with others and so do his will.

You will find the prayer community booklet and the readings for the next few weeks available as downloads

With prayers and blessings,