Unforced Rhythms of Grace, Pt. 1: Prayer
Take Communion
Leader: Begin your time together by taking communion together, whether as a full meal or some version of the bread and the cup before or after your meal. If you don’t already have a Communion liturgy, have someone read from the gospel of Matthew 11v28-30
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Read This Overview Aloud Together
Prayer is the center-point of life with God. It’s woven into the fabric of our morning routines, midday breaks, our weekly schedule. We want to make time for prayer every day, because it’s here where we get to enjoy the Lord’s presence and the Spirit’s companionship. Prayer is our opportunity to interact with the Creator God and participate in his work of bringing redemption to earth.
And yet, most of us don’t really enjoy prayer. We tend to feel bad or guilty about how little we pray. And when we finally make time to pray, we either don’t know what to say or are too distracted to focus. Many of us have the desire to grow closer to God in prayer, in hopes to become more like him, but it can seem difficult to know where to start.
As Jesus’ disciples noticed how close he was to the Father, they asked him to teach them how to pray. And how did Jesus respond? Rather than giving them a sermon on prayer or a theology about God, he prayed. Right then and there, Jesus prayed with them. And as he did, the disciples learned that Jesus’ praying started with the assumption that God loved him. Prayer, we discover, is about bringing to God what is in us, not what we think should be in us. The invitation for each of us is to commit to praying as you can, rather than as you think you should.
There are several ways to practice prayer, but tonight we are going to pray prayers of gratitude.
Do This Practice Tonight
As we heard on Sunday, we are engaging the Practice of Prayer through Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm. We’ll talk about the Morning and Midday rhythms later, but for tonight we are going to practice praying the Evening rhythm of gratitude together.
Leader: If you’re not already in a room where people can get settled in, consider moving into a place where everyone can position themselves comfortably. Once you’re there (if you’re not already), invite people to get comfortable and then pray to invite the Spirit to guide your time.
The evening is generally a time for resting and presence. We are tired from the events of our day, and yet we also often litter our homes, dinner tables, and relationships with the clutter we carry home from the day. So the greatest gift we can give one another right now is our collective, undivided presence to God.
To begin, let’s spend some time silently reviewing the events of our last 24 hours with the Spirit, as we listen through a few prompts to remember how and where God met us. As we go, it may be helpful to close our eyes to set our full attention on God. Let’s do our best to allow God to help us remember all of it.
Leader: Be sure not to rush through these questions. Allow space and time — like 10 or 20 seconds — between each prompt, so that everyone has the chance to reflect.
Who did you see?
What did you work on today?
What meals did you eat?
Was there anything surprising about today?
Leader: Pause here and wait for a moment in silence before moving onto the next part.
Now, as we stay in a posture of reflection with God, let’s bring our attention back to the room. We are going to offer prayers of gratitude as we remember God’s presence all across the hours of the day. As we pray, we want to thank God for overdoing it.
There are so many ways we could pray and our hope is to hear from everyone, and so here are some ideas of what these prayers could sound like:
“God, it would have been enough to have a job today, but you gave me a team I love to work alongside.”
“I feel like you overdid it with Portland’s beauty today, God. Thank you that I get to be surrounded by such beautiful nature.”
“A delicious dinner would’ve been good, but I get to share it with a Community. Thank you, God.”
It keeps going like that, but you get the point. “Thank you God for overdoing it.” Let’s take some time now to pray together. As in all conversations, periods of silence are ok. Same when we talk to God. These prayers are short and simple offerings of gratitude — we can each do more than one, if we want. I’ll start and we’ll keep going until I close.
Leader: Let these prayers go on as long as you think is helpful (5 or 10 minutes), then close in a quick prayer before moving onto the Practice for the Week Ahead.
Read The Practice for the Week Ahead
This week we want to continue with the Practice of Prayer by setting aside intentional time to engage the Daily Prayer Rhythm.
In this Daily Prayer Rhythm, we will pause and pray – morning, midday, and evening. Each morning we will begin the day with the Lord's Prayer. At midday, we will create time to pray for the lost. Then, each evening we want to end our day in gratitude to God, as we did in our Practice all together tonight. You can learn more about the Daily Prayer Rhythm at bridgetown.church/dpr
If you already are praying Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm, consider adding something like the Examen to your Prayer Practice. You can learn more about that in this Guide from our Hearing God series.
The next time we meet, we’ll take time to hear about how this Practice of the Daily Prayer Rhythm went for each of us.
End in Prayer
Leader: Close your time together in prayer, asking God to continue teaching your Community that his yoke is easy and his burden is light through the Practice of Prayer.