Keeping Company with God: The Practice of Prayer

People practice prayer in many ways. How do you talk to God? Read Psalm 63: 1-8 NIV and Mark 1: 35. NIV and consider the questions below in preparation for Pastor Michelle’s sermon,  Keeping Company with God:  The Practice of Prayer.

Questions for Reflection

1. Richard Foster, a deeply respected Quaker author writes with a deep knowledge/experience of prayer.  In his classic book, The Celebration of Discipline, he shares this strong conviction about the discipline prayer.  What do you think?
“To pray is to change.  Prayer is the central avenue that God uses to transform us.  If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.”

2. Philip Yancey is the former editor of Christianity today magazine, twelve-Gold Medallion award-winning books (What’s So Amazing About Grace, The Jesus I Never Knew, Disappointment with God, Where is God When it Hurts, The Bible Jesus Read etc…)  Writing as a fellow pilgrim in book Prayer:  Does it Make Any Difference, Yancey asks some profound questions: “When we pray are we delusional and only piously talking to ourselves? Why does God let the world go on as it is and does not intervene? Why does God sometimes seem so close and sometimes so far away.” Consider this Yancey quote as well:

“Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around two themes: Why God doesn’t act the way I want God to act, and I why I don’t act the way God wants me to.  Prayer is the precise point where those two themes converge.”

3. Consider what writer Ann Lamott’s words on prayer as relayed in the sermon.

4. Talk about your practices of prayer or conversation with God. Is there a right way to do it?  What if anything does prayer have to do with realignment? Does prayer change God or me?

5. Instead of trying so hard to figure out prayer and its efficacy, what would happen if we just showed up regularly for time with God?  If we just ‘kept company’ with God?

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