We’ve had many visits to our site and folks register here as well. Abingdon Press is curious to know what you think of the When You Pray products and Becoming a Praying Congregation? How is your church using the products? What seems to be working best for your congregation? Is there anything that could be added or changed? Have the articles in Becoming a Praying Congregation inspired you to try new things?
Let us know!
Abingdon Press is pleased to announce the release of two additional products – When You Pray as a Family and When You Pray as a Small Group.
Both of these books are designed to compliment Rueben Job’s When You Pray and the churchwide program Becoming a Praying Congregation.
When You Pray as a Family is designed to help families reconnect each week in a meaningful way by creating an intentional time together when they may read, explore, and discuss Scripture; pray together; and share the concerns and blessings of their week.
When You Pray as a Small Group is intended to assist small groups in the exploration and practice of prayer. It may be used by prayer groups, Sunday school classes, Bible study groups, committees/teams, or any small group desiring to grow closer to God and to one another through prayer. This guide presents five session plan templates, offering choices for different types of groups with different needs and interests: Discussion-based, Activity-based, Introspective, Arts-focused, and Habit-breaker.
Written by Rueben P. Job
We can live a life of faithfulness to God, a life of joyful trust and confident assurance even in our troubled and divisive time. But we can never do it on our own. It is inconceivable that we should think we could live a life of companionship with God without God’s help. It is impossible to live a Spirit-led, Spirit-guided life without the Spirit’s help. And prayer is the only way to enter into and keep that relationship with God alive and thriving.
Granted, there are a multitude of methods and models of prayer. But all true prayer fashions and forms our relationship with God and without it we are simply trying to do God’s work on our own. A preposterous idea! To seek to live a life faithful to God while avoiding God is a great pretense that will end in failure. Jewish mystic Abraham Heschel says, “Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives, to let God’s will prevail in our affairs; it is the opening of a window to God in our will, an effort to make God the Lord of our soul. We submit our interests to God’s concern and seek to be allied with what is ultimately right. Our approach to the holy is not an intrusion, but an answer.” (Man’s Quest For God, Scribner, 1954).
When You Pray is written for everyone. It is meant to be accessible to the beginner and also a reminder and help to the person practiced in the life of prayer. It is accessible because it is grounded in familiar biblical passages and shaped by the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. It is designed as a way of practicing a life of prayer. If we are eight or eighty we will still be learning, growing, and discovering as we nurture our relationship with God and as we allow God to nurture us in this daily time with God. Individuals, families, small groups, and the entire congregation can use When You Pray as they seek to discover or deepen their walk with God.
Becoming A Praying Congregation is designed for use in a congregation-wide effort to become a praying congregation. So often congregations are limited by a belief that nothing can be known or done beyond their own capacity or knowledge. Becoming A Praying Congregation provides a pathway to discover anew or for the first time God’s desire to be our constant Guide, Companion, Savior, and Lord. When You Pray is the playbook, the daily map for this journey of faith that we are all making.
Both Becoming a Praying Congregation and When You Pray are designed in such a way that the user can start on any day of any year and be at an appropriate place of beginning. Congregations will decide when they want to begin a congregation-wide effort on the basis of their own program needs and plans. Individuals, families, and small groups will do the same. Some may want to begin as an Advent or Lenten experience, but any time is the right time to begin or renew one’s relationship with God.
It’s a joy to bring you Becoming a Praying Congregation. It is our hope that the plans and ideas in the book will inspire you to create new prayer experiences that are just right for your congregation.
Two years ago, we launched research around the churchwide programs leaders most wanted to see. Prayer ministry was a top request. While there are many excellent books and studies on individual prayer, there aren’t as many helps for lifting up prayer in worship, teaching, and all the ministries of the church.
As Rueben Job says in the introduction, “Prayer…is a way of living…. This way of living is nothing more or less than a constant and growing companionship with the living God made known most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
We’ve brought together writers from around the church bringing you their best experiences in all reaches of congregational life. We hope that the diversity of styles and approaches will be a taking off place for your own work. You’ll see a plan in the book that offers just one way to use these resources and the daily prayer guide, When You Pray, in a 12-month program.
If this resource helps you and your members grow in your companionship with God through Jesus Christ, then our goals have been met.