Prayer

We believe that the prayer has the power to change lives by strengthening our relationship with God through our faith and trust in Him. Prayer is a conversation with God about anything and everything and can be done anytime and anywhere! You don’t need to use big or fancy words; just be honest and sincere. There is no particular format or order or time of day for prayer. Pray whenever you need to talk with God. You can talk to Him in silence or speaking out loud. Through prayer, you can praise God; thank Him for what He has done; tell Him how you feel; ask God for what you need; confess what you’ve done wrong; lift up others you know need prayer. God loves to hear our prayers and wants to help – we just have to remember to go to Him first and not as a last resort! Prayer is an illustration of our personal faith and trust in God and belief in His plan for our life.

The first and greatest prayer you can pray is the prayer of salvation – to fully turn your life over to Jesus. This is the foundational element on which you can build everything else in your life. If you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can do that right now. Just open your heart to him and pray to him, inviting him into every piece of your life and giving your life over to him. If you have now just taken that first step of salvation, we pray for you as you are welcomed with open arms into God’s family!

The original set of guidelines for how to pray were offered by Jesus Himself as described in the New Testament books Matthew and Luke in the form of what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. The “easy to remember” guidelines created and described later below use the lessons originally taught by Jesus.

The Lord’s Prayer is shared by Jesus in Matthew 6: 9-13 (Link to NIV scripture) as part of the Sermon on the Mount and in Luke 11: 1-34 (Link to NIV Scripture) in response to a request from one of his disciples who said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist taught his disciples.” The first three of the seven petitions in Matthew address God; the other four are related to human needs and concerns. A doxology is added to the end of the prayer: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.”

We recognize that prayer may not always feel comfortable and that you may need some guidelines to help you if you are just starting your journey with prayer. Below we have listed some starting guidelines using the Lord’s Prayer and other prayer formats you can use. We recommend starting with these and also doing your own research using books and online. Some people prefer to keep their prayers as verbal prayers and some people also like to keep a Prayer Journal of things they want to pray about and how God answered their prayers. If you are in need of a journal to start your prayer journey, please contact us through our contact page and let us know! We would be more than happy to provide you with one!