Thursday, March 23, 2017

Praying and Church

Praying is the most common human practice for communicating with the Divine . . .  

Prayer occurs through all kinds of situations, experiences, and locations; one of them is at churches.  Not just in churches, but at churches.  You can go to a church and pray, if it’s open. You can go to weekly scheduled church services and participate through the liturgy’s prayers. You don’t have to go to church to pray, but you can pray there with others.

I, and maybe you have heard a statement like “you don’t have to go to church to pray; you can pray anywhere.” True. Yet praying is both personal and communal engagement of God by humans. The possible values of prayer are both instinctive within us, and inspired beyond us; the Bible and human history abound with accounts of prayer and praying; think about it. In the stories of the bible people pray personally, collectively, constantly, and commonly.  Personally we speak to and listen for God. Collectively our prayers are made for Divine intervention, and daily wisdom in life’s many challenging situations. 

Praying constantly isn’t quitting our work and life-responsibility to “just pray,” it’s not quitting on praying as a normative practice; remember while God who is not late, from our perspective often seems to miss an opportunity to be early! Keep praying. Both the Bible and historical stories of nations and whanau say, “Prayer is commonly practiced.”

Bear in mind you can pray without going to a church, but you won’t go to a church or its services without praying. That’s the norm of Christian faith. 

Praying is a normal human practice for communicating with the Divine.  



John Douglas - March 2017