Genesis

1 - I heard a few weeks ago someone say that a prayer should always have scripture associated with it, which I tried to google to see where that idea came from. It wasn’t that I was going to stop developing a praying discipline, I just needed to figure out if it was a sign that I was praying wrong?

I think the idea of teaching your children to pray is a great idea and I also have friends who as a family say the dinner prayer that begins “God is great God is Good let us thank Him for our food” How else do you foster the discipline of praying? But how do you get that to not just be something that you do but rather something you feel.

When I was a child my parents taught us a bedtime prayer in German, so not only did my brothers and I pray because we had to but we really didn’t have a clue what we were saying, we’d get in trouble for saying it too fast. By the time I was ten I understood what I was praying but it still was more of a rote thing.

For a while I was keenly aware that I was saying but not necessarily FEELING the Lord’s prayer. Like many of the creeds and liturgy that we just said, it become rote and the words were almost more like melodies in my head than anything truly reaching my heart.
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2 - I grew up in a church where rote prayers were used every single Sunday. As a matter of fact, as the priest was preparing communion, my brother and I would look at each other and see who could say the exact same thing as the priest said.

No prayers were ever said outside our Sunday worship. So the first time I came to one of the Genesis services and Pastor Todd - I belive it was him - had us turn to each other in a small group and pray, I was horrified. I had never heard anyone pray about things on their heart. Only Hail Mary's and Our Father's were said.

When everything kind of clicked for me a few years ago and a light went on to how things are supposed to be - or could be - I felt a real anger toward my parents for NOT teaching me things. But we went to church every Sunday and that was what was required.

I love going through the Lord's prayer and taking it line-by-line and putting new meaning into an old rote prayer. Hopefully, I will be able to say it during church without cringing and having a flood of old memories crash in on me. (Comment this)

3 - I think it will be interesting to break the prayer down. I stopped doing a who lot of "traditional" things because of the idea that I just didn't feel them but I can't help but wonder what I'm missing when so many other people find comfort or energy from them.

I too absolutely cringed at the idea of saying prayers out loud to each other and have really come to appreciate the genuine way people pray. That still doesn't mean it a huge stretch for me to do it which seems so odd because I think I'm placing too much importance on what people think instead of just going to God for a genuine conversation.

When Pastor Ben mentioned the holy of holies it popped into my head the memory of the church I grew up in. When we were in a group and praying it was always the pastor who led the prayer. It was just assumed because he had the degree or the special knowledge that he'd best send up the prayer to God. No one ever just volunteered to start or close the prayer.

Because everyone CAN pray. Are there specific steps to prayer? Is pigeonholing to some checklist going to make the prayer "successful"? I'm looking forward to hearing the different ways people pray.

A few weeks ago at one of the new member classes Pastor Dean shared a story about listening to prayers and incorporating reading the bible and maybe that's more meditation than prayer but it made me think that so often I just jump into prayer, typically before falling asleep and my prayers are distracted because my mind is trying to shut down to go asleep or I have all of the details roaming my head so while I share the list of petitions to God I'm also creating a to-do list, get distracted by other things and it's then not necessarily a prayer but rather a calming of my brain before sleep. (Comment this)