About a year ago, I was in a committee meeting with some lay people in my congregation that I respect, admire and enjoy very much. In this meeting, the topic of prayer came up and one of the people in the meeting candidly confessed, “I am not sure how to pray.”

That comment kind of struck me like a thunderbolt because as people of faith, we assume basic literacy in prayer. But as Rabbi Harold Kushner observes: “We have been badly taught about the nature and function of prayer.”

I believe that there is a yearning to pray that stirs within every soul. Our hearts seek a connection to God, and the Holy Spirit whispers an invitation to all to strengthen that connection through prayer.

Thinking about this brings to mind, a very old, but powerful hymn that I used to hear and sing often as a child. The hymn begins:

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed;
the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.

There are five additional verses of this wonderful hymn, penned by James Montgomery in 1818. It is worth reading and contemplating all the verses. If you wish to do so, see page 492 of The United Methodist Hymnal.

But even if people feel a desire to pray, they may feel that they just don’t know how to pray, exactly why and when they should pray, where to pray, what to pray about, what to expect from a prayer experience. For people who have mastered some of these prayer basics, there may be a hunger for a deeper and more meaningful prayer life or a curiosity about ancient and future forms of prayer.

Unlike schooling system

Unlike our schooling system, where we assume a common body of knowledge is learned by students as they progress to another grade level, people journey to faith and spirituality with many different entry points and many different paths of development. Prayer may not have been learned in the same way that students learn reading through recognizing words and making meaning out of printed text or math by memorizing multiplication tables. So, how to construct a prayer life may involve unspoken questions on the hearts of many people sitting in pews every Sunday.

Complicating the prayer issue is the language we have to describe prayer. Rabbi Kushner points out that “snow” is so important in Eskimo culture that the Inuits “have 25 different words for it.” Prayer may be all around us in spiritual communities and in our private lives, but we only have one word for it. Yet, prayer is a diverse spiritual practice that could use more than one name.

A shared congregational prayer is very different from a personal prayer of reflection and meditation, or a personal plea for God’s intercession and help. A prayer of praise and thanksgiving differs greatly from a prayer of confession. And there are many different forms of prayer: contemplative prayers like Lectio Divina, kinesthetic prayers like walking a labyrinth or a liturgical dance, prayers from memorized text or read from the scriptures, designer prayers composed by a poet or a creative worship team, the simple prayer of a child over the evening family meal.

Study topic of prayer

If you wish to study the topic of prayer in more depth, the Media Resource Center would like to assist you. There are a number of good video studies and books available to borrow from the Media Center.

For example, you can listen to Rabbi Kushner’s comments on “Questions of Faith Series I: What Good is Prayer” available from the Media Resource Center.

On this and the following page are excellent resources available in the Media Resource Center on prayer. Please call (847) 931-0710, ext. 17, or sgieseler@umcnic.org, if you want to discuss these or resources on other subjects that the Media Center may be able to provide your congregation or organization.