Prayer Training - Week 1

Prayer Training – Week 1 (16th September 2008)

Pray before we start as a group,
Introduction, prayer box for questions.
“God’s power is released in the lives of the people who pray!”

Group discussion,
Do we agree with this statement?
What do you value (or enjoy) about prayer?
What do you think you are missing from your prayer life?
What expectations do you have from this training?


What is prayer?
Relationship, a dialogue
§ The chance to develop intimacy and closeness with the father (John 15:5-8)
To be part of God’s great works, he challenges us through our prayer lives
God loves us and wants to meet with us (Acts17:26-27), he created us for that purpose
It’s the opportunity to align ourselves with God’s thinking, as we align ourselves we can see his work and understand Him and His works better

Short drama comparing the relationship with God to a relationship with a husband. This includes the time spent with a husband and how much time we spent with God and how the talking works.


Why should we pray? – any ideas?
To develop our relationship with God, all relationships depend on communication, that is how they grow – think of other relationships, John 15:15
Because God cares about us and wants to hear from us
Because we can go straight to our God, Ephesians 2:18

Helps us to release control, enables us to be vulnerable – Psalm 145:14

Because Jesus prayed - come to that later – and because we are Christians

To tell God our problems

For guidance

We can put our thoughts into words and it helps us to be listened to

Because it can change our life and the lives of those around us, he can heal us through prayer (God doesn’t always give us what we want, e.g. courage, he may give us more opportunities for e.g. courage)
It changes our viewpoint of those we see, touches us and challenges us, we can see the world as God sees it, develop compassion (e.g. the apostle John, at one point he wanted to destroy a whole city because some of its residents didn’t want Jesus to stay there, Luke 9:51-54 – after a lifetime in God’s presence, John wrote “whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”, 1 John 4:8
To do his work on earth we should know him

Because God answers prayers, we can see God working in our world, people become Christians

When we pray God will reward us (Matthew 6:6) – with appropriate rewards

It’s never a waste of time

To release God’s power

Because we can

By confessing our sins he forgives them, 1 John 1:9


Why do I need to pray if God knows everything about us?
Because of building the relationship
Because (as above) by confessing our sins, we can understand they have been forgiven, we are developing our selves (?)


Video clip – Bruce Almighty
Sometimes it is hard to know if God answers our prayer, sometimes we feel like we are ranting but through it all we can still be in conversation with God.

Group question
Have you ever experienced answered prayer? Any that particularly stand out for you?
Have you ever experienced unanswered prayer?
What affect did these experiences have on you and your relationship with God?


Unanswered Prayer (Richard)
The reasons there might be
Our actions stopping things from changing
God knowing the situation best
In hindsight the prayer would have been something else
Certain things we can’t change
We don’t always get what we want
Wrong motives
God’s will is different and we don’t always understand it
Free will
Sometimes we don’t know or understand and we won’t while on earth
People in the bible, e.g. Moses, Habbakuk, Paul
Just because he doesn’t answer does not mean he doesn’t care

Waiting (Richard)

It’s a Step of faith – based on what you have just heard prayer is a step of faith, we can call out to God and think he doesn’t hear us or we can ask a prayer and see problems still happening. Alternatively we can have our prayer answered where others tell us it is a coincidence. Prayer is understanding that we are not in control and trusting that God will do many things from it. We are committing parts of our lives to God and that is frightening. We hear about prayer being of faith in James 5, of Elijah praying that it would not rain and it didn’t for 3 and a half years, he then prayed and he prayed again and it rained.


Focus on Jesus in prayer – talk about it in groups and discuss what this tells us about Jesus and therefore what it tells us about our prayer lives

Matthew 6:5-8
When you pray (not if)
Go into your room and close the door
Father will reward you
Do not babble

Luke 9:28-36
§ Prayed with others
§ Prayed on a mountain
§ Amazing things happened, his clothes glowed (our clothes don’t tend to glow)
§ God spoke (revealed that “this is my son, whom I have chosen: listen to him”) – God told people to listen to Jesus

Matthew 26:36-45 – Jesus in Gethsemene
§ Asked for something to be taken away – unanswered prayer
§ But “yet not my will but yours” – recognising that God was in control, that it was God’s will he was looking to
§ “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” – prayer can change us
§ giving all control to God
§ coming to God in pain, suffering and stress, he was in a desperate state
§ We can talk to God about ourselves, about our own pain
§ went off by himself
§ he prayed exactly the same thing 3 times, we can also pray things the same way, we don’t always have to think about different words
§ He spoke to the father

John 17:1-26
§ Praying to God
§ Prays for himself, disciples & all believers
§ Understanding the disciples will face things (doesn’t ask they will be taken out the world) but asks for them to be protected
§ Understands God is in control
§ Understands that we need to be taken care from the evil powers of the world (devil)
§ Glorified God
§ It seems the prayer isn’t answered but in fact he is in a deeper spiritual way

Mark 1:35, Luke 5:15-16, Luke 6:12-13, Hebrews 5:7
§ Jesus prayed in different places at different times of the day
§ Jesus withdrew to lonely places
§ Jesus prayed before important decisions (choosing disciples)
§ Jesus prayed with loud cries and tears, we to can pray with emotions
§ After prayer Jesus acted, we should associate prayer with action


Homework:
Task for the weeks of training and beyond (story from walking on water book)
Focus on a particular thing that you want to pray for, something that maybe you haven’t prayed about before (maybe even someone). Pray about it every day for the weeks that training is on and until the week of the 24hour prayer and then see if anything has changed.
Rewrite a Psalm in your own words
Pray this everyday for the next 7 days “I pray that I (or we) being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Amen”


Pray for each person in small group – do this by writing down something about each person in the group and then thank God for it. Maybe you want to share your focus for homework or come up with your own way in your group.

Maybe from hearing about unanswered prayer, you have been convicted of something you know needs to change or a prayer you need to continue praying. Maybe you feel God isn’t listening, we can keep asking, being honest with how we feel (come to this next week). Renew this request, ask God to act and be honest.

Pray to close as a group