When asked by his barber and good friend, Peter Beskendorf, for some practical guidance on how to prepare oneself for prayer, Luther responded by writing this brief treatise, first published in the spring of 1535. After 500 years, his instruction continues to offer words of spiritual nurture for us today.
Grace Mazza Urbanski, former director of Children’s Ministry for the Apostleship of Prayer (now the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network), gives parents practical advice on how to help children find opportunities to pray throughout the day in Pray with Me: Seven Simple Ways to Pray with Your Children. Using warmth, humor, and passion, Urbanski draws on personal experience to show how families are brought closer together through deeper contact with God. There are opportunities for children to pray everywhere—when a friend gets hurt on the playground, before a test in the classroom, and even as they hear ambulance sirens while riding in the car with mom or dad—not just at meals and bedtime. In Pray with Me, Urbanski identifies seven ways that parents can help deepen their child's relationship with God by using everyday life as a trigger for prayer. She shows how spontaneous prayer, traditional prayers you know by heart, scripture, song, silence, and reflection help families draw closer to God and each other. Urbanski weaves personal stories with a heartfelt devotion to Christ to teach parents how to help their children learn to respond to life in prayer.
Pete Greig is a worldwide authority and the face of a generation when it comes to prayer. One of the founders of the 24-7 prayer movement, he has seen, experienced, and chronicled amazing works of God in the world. While you might imagine him to be puffed up, Pete Greig is entirely the opposite. He is enchanting, down-to-earth, friendly, and most of all, very normal–and yet he tells preposterous tales about prayer (and they’re true). He is basically a regular dude who loves to talk with God. How to Pray is written to evoke a passion for prayer in everyone—the committed follower of Jesus as well as the skeptic and the scared. The enormous blessing of How to Pray is that it is accessible, full of surprising stories of answered prayer, and tremendously engaging. The basic idea is that prayer is a conversation between you and God. Pete Greig demystifies and reenchants prayer, helping you to find prayer achievable and enjoyable, and ultimately life-giving and life-changing. How to Pray is designed to be used together with The Prayer Course (a free video curriculum associated with the Alpha course), making it useful for personal and group or church-wide reading.
For Christians, prayer is the main way we communicate with God - but what can we do when we struggle with the question of how to pray or feel our prayer lives are lacking? Seven Ways to Pray explores how by looking to ancient prayer practices of Christianity, we can find fresh ways to relate to God today. Discovering these tried and tested tools will not only strengthen our relationship with him but will bring us joy, contentment, growth and transformation. With warmth and encouragement, Amy Boucher Pye takes us through seven ways to pray to God: praying with the Bible, receiving and extending forgiveness, practicing God's presence, listening prayer, the prayer of lament, praying with the gospels imaginatively and the prayer of examen. Guiding us through their history, she shows us how easily we can make these prayer practices part of our lives and use them to grow closer to God. Along with prayer exercises to help us engage directly with God, there are questions for individual reflection or small-group discussion, making Seven Ways to Pray perfect to use as a family, in churches or with friends. This is a book for anyone who has ever wondered how to pray or is looking for ways to revitalise their prayer lives. It will give you an understanding of some of the oldest prayer practices of Christianity, and equip you with the tools you need to renew and refresh your relationship with God. Come along, and discover Seven Ways to Pray.
Whether you've just begun to pray or have been faithfully praying for years, the wisdom in this book will help you pray better. Fr. Lawrence Lovasik here shows you innumerable ways you can avoid common obstacles and deepen your prayer life, no matter how much or how little you may have prayed before.
A Linn primer that captures the essence of what they've shared and experienced in their ministry; the universal application of eight ways of praying that have the capacity to heal by virtue of their integrating contemporary spirituality with the wisdom of St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. Full-color illustrations. +
Imagine a group of kids on the floor of a gym, or filling a classroom, or on a weekend retreat, praying in a whole new way--so silently that you can hear a pin drop! It happens everyday with Praying in Color.
Praying with the Bible is an active dialogue with God through which we may be taught, healed, and transformed. It is God and the praying person communicating and offering themselves to each other. Learn an ancient prayer technique known as lectio divina -- a simple, natural rhythm of reading and reflection that can be used for individual and family prayer, Bible study, or small faith-sharing groups. Lectio, or "holy reading," is well-known to monks and nuns, but it actually began with and is equally appropriate for laypersons. Acclaimed author and retreat leader Karl A. Schultz, author of eight related books, will teach you an intuitive way to use this process for the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, the Mass, modern papal encyclicals, spiritual classics, journaling, and stress management. Addressing the Catholic Biblical Federation, Pope Benedict XVI said that, if effectively promoted, lectio will bring to the Church "a new spiritual springtime." This book is not only about how to pray with the Bible, but how to bring it to life using your own experience, which contributes significantly to a meaningful encounter with God's Word.