How should we ask God?
For the past couple of months at Catford Community Church we've been thinking through prayer, in various different forms, based on Pete Grieg's How to Pray - P ause, R ejoice, A sk, Y ield. In the middle of exploring 'Asking-Prayer' I was interested to come across a new little book focussed on how we can revitalise our asking prayers by looking at the pattern of prayer in the Bible and in the church. In To You All Hearts Are Open Scot McKnight identifies a particular pattern of prayer in prayers recorded in the Bible, which is reflected in the prayers of many churches known as 'Collects'. McKnight sees five elements that commonly appear in biblical prayers that ask something of God, so that the person praying: Addresses God - often in the Old Testament this was simply addressing God as 'Lord' or 'Lord Almighty'. Jesus and the New Testament writers encourage ...