Prayer Living

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

Personal

• Create a sacred space in your home or work place just for quiet and prayer. Lighting candles and incense are sometimes helpful in creating this space.

• Find a regular time each day for prayer, preferably in the morning as soon as you rise.

• Find spiritual reading that nourishes and delights you. This makes a time of prayer more attractive and compelling.

• Find and join a prayer group that prays regularly. If you can't find one, form one.

• Pray when you can and where you can - in traffic, standing in line, in waiting rooms, at bus stops and airport departure lounges. If you open to God more easily in the bathtub, garden, or nature, go there to pray.

• Pray as you can - the great Catholic mystic Meister Eckart said that if we all say is "thank you" to God, this is enough.

• Give yourself a regular break from newspapers, television, email, telephone.

• Take up a body discipline that relaxes you for prayer. Gentle stretching before quiets the tension of the body and helps focus the mind and heart on God.

• Develop a rule of life that holds you in a rhythm of prayer.

Church Staff

• Gather in prayer at the beginning of the work day.

• Gather in prayer before worship and other gatherings.

• Hold one another in prayer.

Youth Ministry

• Teach basic prayer disciplines as an integral part of your weekly meetings. Use a guide book if this helps.

• Start where young people are with the prayers they already know - explore the meaning of the "Our Father" and the worship services that they attend. Many young people long for a commentary on what's going on.

• De-mystify prayer. Talk about your own prayer life and the struggles to pray.

• Do rituals. Young people consistently report their love for rituals of healing and blessing. Mark as many celebrations as you can with prayer and ritual.

• Study the lives of the saints - historic and contemporary. Young people are looking for identification figures and patterns on which to model their lives.

• Invite parents into spiritual formation as part of baptismal confirmation preparation.

Congregation

• Teach and talk about prayer.

• Plan afternoon and evening retreats.

• Bring in retreat leaders for Advent and Lenten weekends and free up the pastoral staff to pray with the people.

• Lead a prayer and study group using a introductory text such as Henri Nouwen's Reaching Out.

• Make prayer and spiritual formation integral to marriage preparation and other rites of passage.