Prayer Resources
We are spending a season at Holy Trinity considering the theme of prayer. Below you will see three phases outlined for our journey together. The prayer is that the sermon series, the Discipleship Weekend, and the Faith Formation class will all converge to form us to be a praying people in a more prayerful parish during this season. The accompanying resources will be updated periodically, so please check back often.
Phase One - The Lord’s Prayer Sermon Series
To begin, we are going to start with Jesus. His disciples see Him praying and they are astonished by the character of His prayer. So, they ask Him, “Teach us to pray!” And Jesus gives them His “Lord’s Prayer.” What makes this prayer such a wonderful gift is that in giving it to us, Jesus teaches us to pray prayers that connect with the very heart of God, His Father and our Father. We can pray each petition with confidence knowing our heavenly Father absolutely loves to answer these kinds of prayers.
Phase Two - Discipleship Weekend
Mark your calendars to join us for our third annual Discipleship Weekend - February 21st - 22nd! We've invited The Reverend Sue Currie to come and speak to us about Prayer as Communion: Life in the Kingdom. This will weekend will be a rich time of fellowship and discipleship. We trust it will form the prayer life of our parish in significant ways. Please come. The registration fee will help us cover meals. Click here to register.
Phase three - Faith Formation Class on Prayer
During the season of Lent and Eastertide, we will be offering a Faith Formation class for adults and youth on the topic of prayer. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.
Some Titles to consider
A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, Paul Miller - Miller lays out a pattern for living in relationship with God and includes helpful habits and approaches to prayer that enable us to return to a childlike faith.
Fifty-seven Words That Change the World: A Journey Through the Lord's Prayer, Darrell Johnson - “In eight stirring meditations, Darrell Johnson shows how the Lord's Prayer sums up the essence of Christian faith and, when prayed in faith, draws us into draws us into the Triune God's work of transforming the world.”
Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard Foster - Foster offers a warm, compelling, and sensitive primer on prayer, helping us to understand, experience, and practice it in its many forms - from the simple prayer of beginning again to unceasing prayer.
So We Believe, So We Pray, by George Arthur Buttrick - Buttrick had a long and faithful ministry in the academy and the church, notably at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. This is a treasure of a read.
The Lord and His Prayer, N.T. Wright - “This book of pastoral reflections N.T. Wright explores how the Lord's Prayer sums up what Jesus was all about in his first-century setting.”
The Prayer that Spans the World, by Helmut Thielicke - This is a wonderful book that has been in and out of print. Thielike was a German theologian and pastor during the middle part of the last century whose faithfulness was heroic.