Describing Prayer
The faith practice of prayer is a way in which we actively submit ourselves and our world to God’s ongoing transformational work in Christ by expressing ourselves to God and listening for God to engage with us.
Putting Prayer into Practice
by Chris Schoon, Director of Thrive-US
One day, after listening to Jesus pray, his disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). It was a simple and heartfelt request, but the significance of it becomes evident when we take a step back.
This account is the only recorded occurrence in which the disciples directly ask Jesus to teach them something. They seem to have no hesitation about healing the sick or casting out demons (Mark 6:13). A few chapters earlier, Luke tells how two of the disciples even offered to call down fire from heaven on a village that did not receive Jesus (Luke 9:54)—a pretty bold offer, for which they get a firm rebuke from Jesus. But somehow, in all they were invited to do as they followed Jesus, the disciples recognized that they needed Jesus to teach them how to pray.
As Jews in the first century, the disciples would have known and sung the prayers that make up the psalms. So it’s not that they didn’t know how to pray at all. But they recognized something different in the way John the Baptist’s followers prayed and in Jesus’ own practices of prayer —and they wanted to learn to pray that way.