05 Apr Praying in real life

Watch TV or film and you could be given the impression that prayer is about bargaining with some unpredictable God, reciting a ‘shopping list of doom’ that lists all the things wrong in the world, or that prayer is about positive thinking, in which it is only permissible to praise God while denying suffering.

Authentic prayer is not about these things. Nor is the purpose of prayer about us changing the mind of some aloof God.

Instead, authentic prayer practices are about letting God meet us in our joy and in our grief – allowing the Holy One close enough to us as we really are. By engaging with this kind of vulnerability we can begin to encounter Divine healing and participate with God’s healing in our beautiful, broken world.

Here we will explore a range of Christian contemplative prayer practices that go beyond simplistic stereotypes and invite us into deeper relationship with the living God.

There will be a short video introducing the prayer style and some follow up materials if you would like to engage further.

These resources are for praying in real life.