Toward Love-filled Praying…
We have identified liturgy as those regularly practiced, often written and recited, prayers of believers. Liturgy usually has a familiar form and the best are recognized as faithful to first the Scriptures, and secondly, to historic Christian faith. The subject matter of liturgy can range between the mundane (prayer of thanks before a meal or upon awakening) and the sublime (“The Lord’s Prayer,” “The Doxology,” Holy Communion, etc.).
Identify your own liturgical experiences. They might include the following:
- Family devotions with a meal
- Personal, daily quiet time of prayer and meditation in the scriptures
- Poetry or song that you regularly listen to or recite to refresh your soul or center yourself in God’s truth
- Regular time spend in memorizing the Scriptures
- Repeated elements in your church family’s weekly worship gathering
- Repeated elements in your small group’s weekly worship gathering
- For other fine examples of prayers often recited, visit “Prayers for All Occasions“
Pick one of your liturgical experiences and consider its worth to your prayer life and spiritual growth.
- How faithful is it to biblical truth?
- When you experience it again and again, how does it encourage your faith?
- How does the liturgy connect you to the family of God – both those with you now and those who’ve gone before?
- What can you take from the liturgy to strengthen your prayer life?
- Liturgy without spontaneous prayer from the heart and heart-felt sharing with other believers can easily become lifeless, empty. In general, what keeps the repetition of written prayers from becoming empty form? And specifically, what keeps the one liturgy you’ve focused on from lifelessness?
Please share your thoughts in response to our video and the questions in the comment section below.
Let’s keep praying!
RESOURCE
See EVERY MOMENT HOLY by Doug McKelvey described here: https://www.everymomentholy.com/about-the-series.
