Why pray?
Prayer is about how we can both talk and listen to God. It is an opportunity to talk to God. There are a variety of ways we can come to prayer, either individually or as part of a group.
At Fishbourne Church prayer takes many forms including individual daily prayer and intercessions (prayer as a group during a service) for our families, immediate church, wider community and international issues). Prayer can also be sung, for example, in some services at Fishbourne, the Lord’s Prayer is sung. The Church holds a quarterly evening Taize service, where easy to pick up, meditative chants are sung to help people focus their thoughts and bring them to God. In church services, prayer can also be experienced via the Litany. This is the written and responsive prayer, which a priest will read for the congregation to listen and meditate over.
We can pray to God at any time or place, and it can be totally individual as it is an expression of a personal relationship with God. Some people find reading Bible passages or written prayers help them to pray. Some people simply talk to God in the same kind of way as you would a family member or friend. Some, do not use words at all, their prayers are mental images of people or situations in life. Sometimes our only way of praying is to be totally dependent on God, when words and phrases are too much to try to use. Silence can be an effective way of communicating with God – allowing us to think about particular situations which we would like to ask for God’s help. Some people pray on the train on the way to work and others have a set time at home which they have marked out for a time with God.
Fishbourne Church has a number of ‘prayer buddies’ who get together regularly and pray for issues in each other’s lives or for people and situations which they have been asked to include in prayer. The Church’s Bible study groups start and end with prayer and include prayers for the life of all those engaged with Fishbourne Church and the local community as a whole.
In the prayer corner at Fishbourne Church, everyone is welcome to write a prayer or a note that they would like to be prayed about in confidence. If you would like to be included in the weekly prayers during a service, contact the Rector.
The weekly Fishbourne pew sheet includes prayers taken from the Diocese’s intercessions cycle. A downloadable quarterly intercessions leaflet is available from the Diocese of Chichester’s website. It includes provinces and dioceses prayed for across the Anglican Communion; festivals, saints' days, and commemorations according to the Common Worship calendar; and parishes in the Diocese prayed for during the year. These parishes are also prayed for in the Cathedral on the same days.
http://www.diochi.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=resources.content&cmid=194
Learn to pray
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/learnpray/
Daily prayer – Church of England website
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/dailyprayer/
Anglican Cycle of Prayer
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/ |
