PrayerFocus
PRAYER FOCUS 
 
In the Foreword to Pete’ Greig’s book How to Pray Nicky Gumbel says that, “Prayer is the most important activity of our lives. It is the way in which we develop a relationship with our Father in heaven.”  Prayer can be undertaken on many levels from individual to parish, Diocesan to Worldwide.  Prayer can also take many shapes.  Over the next few months, we will be focussing on prayer across the parish providing opportunities and resources to help us really dig deeply into this amazing powerhouse.
 
Praying the Lords Prayer    
We have been encouraged by the organisers of Thy KIngdom Come to use the Lord's prayer as our framework this year and we used this to structure our prayers during the Prayer Hour on Thursday evening.  If you would like to know more about using the Lord's prayer as a structure for your prayers then check out this link How to pray the Lord's prayer. This resource is just one of a number of prayer tools that Peter Grieg has put together.  We will be looking at more of these in the coming weeks as we continue to focus on prayer.  
Practical Prayer
Here are some apps, sites and information to help you in prayer.
Individual Prayer
Brother Lawrence, a 17th  Century monk considered that prayer should not be separate from our everyday lives considering that our everyday lives should be infused with God’s presence.  In this way our whole lives are in prayer.  We can pray for those in our neighbourhood as we walk the dog or go to the supermarket.  We can pray for others as we do the washing up or cook tea.  Brother Lawrence wrote an awesome little book called Practicing the Presence of God. You can download a free copy of his book here
Tuia: The Tuia App is one developed by the Anglican Church in NZ and is based around the Daily Devotions. It is a free app that is designed so that even though we may be distanced physically from each other we can still gather people together in prayer. 
Lectio 365: This is another free app put out by the 24/7 Prayer organisation. In Lectio 365 you meditate on the Scriptures and ask God to speak through them.  There are three separate sessions each day to guide your prayer.
 
Prayer Triplets
At All Saints we have been encouraging people to establish prayer triplets in line with the call that when 2 or 3 gather in my name then I will be there also (Matt 18:20).  To know more about prayer triplets check out this link Prayer Triplets or chat to one of the leaders about them.
 
Small Groups
Many of the small groups are having a focus on prayer for their study.  There are many resources on prayer that are available but three I particularly like are the ones from Peter Grieg that can be found here Three Prayer Courses by Pete Greig. Each are based on a short video and then study questions and practice. The first in based around the Lord's Prayer and Peter Greig's book "How to Pray". The second is based on Peter Greig's book "God on Mute" and the theme of unanswered prayer.  The third course really explores Lectio Divina which we briefly introduced during the Lenten Study.  Many groups have also found having a prayer journal and noting answers to prayers is also a very enriching experience and its great to see how God is at work and answers prayer.