Daily Prayer raises of our hearts, souls and minds to God © ECC+C
Daily prayers change lives. They change your life, the lives of those around you and that of the entire world in which we all live. You will discover a sense of peace through developing a deep and nourishing relationship with God and with this, you will live a far more spiritually fulfilling life.
Many people think nothing of exercising their bodies on a daily basis - and those who don't walk, run, swim or attend a gym - wish they did something to live a healthier life. Daily Prayer is the necessary exercise for a healthy soul and a far better developed sense of well being from deep within yourself.
We are being asked all the time how to develop a more Christian way of life. We understand that this doesn't mean being a 'better' person as such although this goal is a great one! We know this is a need to learn how to become closer to God. We are a small church and do not have clergy as yet in every part of England - but we are being contacted again and again by people who feel alone in their faith and seek a worshipful life with us. Sadly many of you who have contacted us live some way from the church buildings of the ECC+C and so this is our only way at this time to feel closer to one another as we grow in numbers and outreach. To pray together is, as they say, to stay together. However a strong prayerful life is learning process that comes to us eventually - with practice!
Developing a strong prayer life can change you, dramatically. Praying can become a deeply satisfying routine in many ways. Just as developing a healthy body can prove hard at first, so can developing your daily prayerful life. I consider it the only opportunity I have to firm up my relationship with our Creator, fully understanding how essential routine prayer is to address the needs of the entire human race, as well as the people I know and love and for my own needs and strength in ministry.
The clergy within the ECC+C meet hundreds of people on a weekly basis within our ministries who crave a more meaningful life of worship. We are also being emailed via our website by people too far away from us to attend our local services. Many ask when, where and how often they should pray. Some have no faith home and others lead quite a lonely spiritual life within their secular world - but would love a deeper relationship with God. The problem is, they don't know where to start. I fully understand this quandary as years ago I also felt prayer could be an ad hoc thing; something we just do anyway and therefore needed little formal structure. How wrong I was!
It is good to talk to God in a haphazard way (for want of a better description) as He likes to hear your thoughts and needs. However, to firm up this daily 'chat' you may already enjoy - just as a great athelete doesn't just randomly take a jog now and again in order to run a marathon - our prayerful lives, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, must take a disciplined form. It can take a long time to structure your life towards this way of praying but once practised, you will find you cannot get through the day without it. You may feel your busy lives do not make provision for daily prayer but you will eventually realise that not only have you got the time to pray, but in truth, you haven't the 'time' not to! Using a formal prayer structure is a good way to discipline yourself towards a Christian life. There are also great theological benefits as it will familiarise you better with the Psalms and the Gospels and letters written to the Early Church. It will focus your spirit to the solemnity and reverence needed within yourself to work fully towards living a Christian life, changing how you currently live (no matter how well you think you live your life) beyond all recognition. It will encourage you to seek others for a shared worshipful life and it will firm up your desire deep within your very soul to strive towards acting every day as Christ taught us to. And one of His intructions to us was to pray. I have just returned form Lourdes - the message from the Mother of God to little Bernadette was to pray and pray and pray again. Every visionary throughout history has reported the same - pray to God and never cease doing so. Can we really do this without harnessing the discipline and structure given to us by the men and women the early Church? Many daily prayer formats are totally inspired by God and so we should use them as best we can.
There are many Daily Prayer formats available and it doesn't matter if it is Catholic, Reformed - whatever - as long as it is Christian! I use a Morning and Evening Prayer book which was given to me by my former bishop and it is a shortened version of the Breviary (The Divine Office) which can be very complicated to work around in your early prayerful routine. We hope that this page helps you find an understanding of the importance of prayer and more essentially, the necessity to discipline your life to solid prayer as soon as you wake and before you sleep. The rest of your day and night will be taken care of by God.
Why must we pray to God?
• In Adoration of Him.
• In gratitude for all the goodness of the day.
• For the sorrows of ourselves and the peoples of the world when the day has been troubled.
• With sorrow for our wrongs and the wrongs of the world.
• In Thanksgiving for His blessings, His Grace and especially the gifts we often take for granted.
• In our requests for ourselves and others - for happiness, health and peace.
Sometimes we all pray for certain things that are not a part of God's plan for us. We soon get to realise what is His Will and what is not best for our lives. To pray for more money may not get you more money - but to pray for your physical needs being met is something completely different. Give us, this day, our daily bread is a prayer that nourishes our bodies as well as our souls as Christ Himself told the dark one we do not live on bread alone. Below are some links to Prayer books - we also have a link to Universalis on the front page.
A message from Bishop Jack, pictured above.
A wonderful Christian woman friend of mine, Ros Rinker, taught me how to pray. She wrote many books (most Famous: "Prayer, Conversation with God") and taught classes on Prayer and convened Conversational Prayer Groups. I was so blessed to be in one of these groups many years ago. She taught me a simple formula in learning to pray.
"ACTS"
In prayers first you "Adore" God. Adoration is so very important in addressing our Lord and Saviour.
Second "Confess" in two ways: Confess how we have missed the mark or Confess our Faith in God.
Third we "Thank" God for all our many Joys and Blessings.
Finally comes "Supplication" for when we get down to praying for others and our own needs.
Jesus said; ask and it will be given to you. (Luke 11:9)
St. Paul said; pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
I believe such Thanksgivings through-out the day help us to begin to pray without ceasing. +Jack
We have a page dedicated to those who have requested the ECC+C to offer regular prayer for themselves or those they love. It contains written prayers you can follow. Follow the links below:
We also have a detailed page on praying Novenas.
There are many Prayer Manuals available from Amazon.co.uk. Here are three you could consider but do search their thousands of Prayer Books available or go to a Christian Bookshop you may know of.
The links below will get you straight to Amazon.
Morning and Evening Prayer: Daily Readings