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The Anglican Church in Tasmania Search |
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a healthy church...transformingLIFE |
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A call to prayer : transforminglife...
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Becoming a people of prayerIn these times, we have little choice but to turn to God’s faithfulness. I pray that we will make this our choice.My call is to action, but the first action
must be prayer. Please turn to God our Father and be
attentive to His voice. IntroductionWelcome to the first of a series of feature pages that will be part of Tasmanian Anglican over the coming months. We hope you will be encouraged and aided by these articles, resource columns, aids for prayer groups etc. that will be part of this page. The majority of those reading this column will be aware that Bishop John has called for 40 Days of Prayer later in the year. In the coming months it is our hope and prayer that around the Diocese people will commence to gather to pray in the period leading up to the 40 Days of Prayer. Like most of you, we are still learning about prayer and we understand that it should be mandatory for Christians to do so. However our experience over many years is that whilst almost all Christians would acknowledge this, yet when prayer meetings are held, very few Christians attend! A Credibility Gap?In many Protestant churches, prayer and Bible study are held up as the activities that will make us spiritually rich. But very few people actually succeed in attaining spiritual richness through them and indeed often find them intolerably burdensome. The 'open secret"' of many 'Bible believing' churches is that a vanishingly small percentage of those talking about prayer and Bible reading are actually doing what they are talking about. They have not been shown how to change their life as a whole, permeating it with appropriate disciplines, so that prayer and Bible reading will be successful. 1 We today yearn for prayer and hide from prayer. We are attracted to it and repelled by it. We believe prayer is something we should do; but it seems a chasm stands between us and actually praying... We are not quite sure what holds us back. Of course we are busy with work and family obligations, but that is only a smoke screen. Our busyness seldom keeps us from eating or sleeping or making love. No, there is something deeper, more profound keeping us in check. 2 Can you identify with these two articles? Would you like to break the drought? Perhaps you are already a little way down the road of prayer and want to journey further. Over the next few months, through this page, your engagement in participating in prayer - on your own and with others - by using some of the resources presented here, we hope and pray you will find a new enthusiasm and richness in your prayer life. Not only that, we are wanting you to actively become involved in praying for the leadership of our diocese and our ministry and mission. 'To a large degree, we have what we have and we are what we are, because of prayer - or the lack thereof.'
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