Study 1: Am I Growing in Prayer?

Heart

1. The video talked about prayer doing things–what kinds of things do you want your prayers to do?

2. Look at this list of things that prayer accomplishes and circle the 2 biggest areas where you need to grow:

   1. Recognize more answered prayer

   2. Thinking about God more

   3. Thanking God more

   4. Loving God more

   5. Relying on God more

   6. Fearing God more

   7. Wanting more of Christ’s Kingdom

   8. Wanting to see more of God’s glory in the world and in my life

   9. Thinking about others’ needs more than your own

   10. You’re more generous - leaving more time, money and effort in your budget to serve others instead of yourself

   11. Responding to others with love for them instead of more selfish reactions

   12. A desire to be honest and fair with everyone

   13. Honoring and respecting others more

   14. Wanting others to know Jesus, and having that reflected in the way you talk to them

Hands

1. Take the 2 things you circled and make 2 new all-the-time prayer reminders for yourself based on them. It will probably work best to make all-the-time prayer reminders (see week 4, day 2) or prayer cards.

2. Use the growth area as the theme of the prayer reminder. Come up with a short phrase to use for your “breath prayer”. Then jot down common examples of situations where you want to remember to pray your breath prayer.  It might look something like this:

Study 2: Strategies for Growth in Prayer

Heart

1. Which Prayer strategy (Pray Bigger, Pray Specific, Pray in real life) do you struggle with the most? Why?

Hands:

1. Think about which one you struggle with and use that to create a new prayer card for yourself. (Look at this prayer card guide and stay tuned for day 4 this week). Try it out and implement it into your regular prayer time.

Study 3: Prayer and Fasting

Heart

1. Have you ever fasted before? Why did you decide to do it? How did it go?

Hands

1. Participate in our day of fasting on September 3.

2. Use the Preparation and Prayer Guide

Study 4: Tools for Prayer

Heart

1. Pick one or two of the prayer tools showed or talked about in the video, that will be easiest or most effective for you. Plan to implement them into your prayer life.

Hands

Here are some more helpful guides and helps for using some of these prayer tools:

1. Prayer List: This is a modified version of a prayer list I was using every day about 2 years ago. It was my weekly prayer list, where each day I pray through what’s in that day’s column. Prayer list template

2. Prayer Cards: Check out this quick guide for using prayer cards. Many of the major concepts and ideas behind prayer cards comes from Paul Miller, “A Praying Life”

3. Prayer Workout Guide 

4. All the Time Prayer Reminders (See Week 4 day 2)

5. Prayer Apps 

   1. Prayer Notebook

   2. The Daily Office 

Study 1: Heart Obstacles to Prayer

Head

Heart

1. Nate listed a number of obstacles to prayer: sin, suffering, doubt, guilt and shame. Which of these keep you from prayer. Why? 

2. Look back at James 4:1-3. As you look at some of your prayers over the past month, how often have you asked for (often good) things, but with wrong motives? 

Hands

1. Pray for God to help you deal with those obstacles to prayer in the confines of his grace and love.

2. Pray for God to show you where your motives are wrong and ask him to help you seek him and his will more than your desires.

Study 2: Hand Obstacles to Prayer

Head

Tying prayer to certain times or activities during our day brings consistency to prayer. Here are a few ideas to start with: before a meal, at kids’ bedtime, before bed, while driving. You can also set alarms or reminders to help you. 

1. Identify several landmarks during the day that could remind you to pray.

2. Additionally, God gave us the Sabbath as a day to focus more on him. Do you spend more time in prayer on the Sabbath?

Heart

1. Are there specific prayers that have become robotic? Identify those, and next time, stop and think before you pray.

2. What’s your initial reaction to spending time in extended prayer on Sundays? What keeps you from doing that? Why are you reluctant? 

Hands

1. For the rest of the week, try to pray more deliberately at your routine prayer times.

2. Pick one day and set three reminders to pray at specific times. 

This Sunday, spend additional time in prayer. Pick a duration that feels like stretch but is realistic for you.

Study 3: Structures for Prayer

Head

The Lord’s prayer is a helpful guide (see the week three lesson, “Praying Scripture,” for more details). The ACTS format is another way to guide your prayer. 

Adoration: Speaking your love and adoration for God, who he is and what he’s done.

Confession: Naming your sins before God and seeking him for forgiveness and grace.

Thanksgiving: Giving thanks for the many ways God has blessed and cared for you. 

Supplication: Naming your requests before God. 

Hands

1. Pray following the ACTS format. Many find it easiest to pray supplications, but struggle with things like adoration. It helps to write out a few things for each item. Set a timer so you spend equal time in each section. Perhaps start with three minutes for each element; if you have more time, try five minutes.

Study 4: Distractions In Prayer

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  – Matthew 6:6

Head

In Matthew 6:6, Jesus reminds us that prayer is not a performance for others, but a conversation with God. But just as having others present can make us self-conscious or distract us, many other things can keep us focused. Going into your room and closing the door helps you focus on God while you pray.

1. What are some of the common distractions you face during prayer? 

2. In the video, Nate listed his “5 f’s and a p” Family, friends, fun, fitness, finances, phone. How have you seen these things distract you when you want to pray?

3. Do you have any rituals or habits (good or bad) with prayer? 

4. Think of some of the times when you were most focused on prayer. Were there things about your environment that aided in that focus?

Hands

1. Find your “place of prayer”: a good location, time of day, etc. where you can be undistracted for a time.

2. During your times of prayer this week make sure you leave your phone out of arm's reach. 

3. Experiment with different postures of prayer. Sometimes kneeling onto a chair or getting away from your desk or table can help you focus. 

Watch Marsha’s Story of Prayer

Study 1: Consistency = Praying Without Ceasing

Head

Heart

1. Before you watched the video, what would have been your instinctive reaction to 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18?

2. What keeps you from keeping God near you all the time? Are there situations where you especially feel far from God on a day to day basis? Write those down and make a note of them.

Hands

1. Pray and thank God that he is with you at all times and in every circumstance.

2. Ask him to direct your heart to him throughout today.

3. Take a few moments to remind yourself to include God in your day today. For example:

   1. Set reminders on your phone to go off every hour that say things like, “Ask for God’s help,” “Thank God,” “Confess a sin.” When those reminders come up, don’t even stop what you’re doing, but just pray.

   2. Or, write those reminders on sticky notes and leave them around your kitchen or bathroom, on your car dashboard, or on your desk at work. 

Study 2: Praying all the time

Head

Re-watch the video – pay close attention to second half.

Heart

1. Can you think of a time in your life when God felt really close to you? What was it like to bring the Lord with you into every situation of every day?

2. Do you feel close to God on a moment by moment basis right now? If not, what is keeping you from him?

Hands

1. Write out some All-The-Time Prayer reminders. 

   1. Go to your answers from yesterday’s “Heart” section. 

   2. Where you feel far from God on a day-to-day basis is a great place to start. For example, if you feel far from God when you worry about your kids, make that one of your All-The-Time Prayer reminders.

2. Next, plan for a way to remind yourself of them. 

   1. Keep them in the back of your mind so that when you see them in your life, you take a moment to pray.

   2. Here’s a tip: write them on a sticky note where you work. This way, you will see them all the time and can take a moment to go over them; eventually they will become second nature.

   3. Or, download a prayer app, such as “Prayer Notebook” or some other similar one, onto your smartphone and use that. Set daily reminders so you can glance over them, get them in the back of your mind, and respond in prayer when you see them in daily life.  

3. The following table has some examples that I modified from my own All-The-Time Prayer Reminders. These are just a place to start, so take time to make them more specific to you and your life. Once you get used to recognizing three or four categories and praying throughout the day, add categories and situations as the Spirit puts on your heart.

Study 3: Private Prayer Time

Head 

Heart

1. Do you spend time privately praying, regularly? Why or why not?

2. What change could you make to be more consistent? 

Hands

1. Pick a time (look at your calendar, set reminders on your phone, set an alarm to get up) to pray regularly.

2. Use this time to do your “prayer homework;” if you’ve fallen behind, go back to week 1 and start again, going day by day through the exercises.

3. Try the One Year “Prayer Fitness” plan.

Study 4: Prayer With Others

Head

Read each passage and answer the questions:

1. Matthew 6:9-14: Why is it significant that Jesus uses the plural (“Our Father…” “give us today our daily bread…” “forgive us our debts…”) in the Lord’s prayer?  

2. Acts 2:42: What do you think it means that the early Christians “devoted themselves...to prayer”? 

3. 1 Corinthians 14:13-19:  “What does Paul mean by speaking in tongues?” is the less important question. More important is what Paul says clearly, especially in verses 17 and 19. According to Paul, what is the purpose of public prayer?

Heart

1. Do you pray with others? Why or why not?

2. When you are around others praying, do you try to pray along with them in your heart?

3. In prayer meetings, prayer groups or small groups, do you pray out loud when you have a chance? Why or why not?

4. What could help you pray more with others?

5. What could you do to help others feel more comfortable praying with you?

Hands

1. Worship is like going to the gym to see a physical trainer: you are not the spectator! In other words, don’t go to the gym just to admire the trainer working out; that’s weird. The trainer is there to lead you through your workout. So don’t go to church just to hear someone else pray. The prayer leader is there to lead you in praying.

   1. This next Sunday, intentionally pray along with the prayer leader.

   2. Try praying during the worship service when it’s not a planned corporate prayer. For example, pray for Jon as he’s preaching, that he would have confidence, be free of distractions, have energy, and that the Holy Spirit would work through him.

2. If you are not already part of a small group, plan to join one this coming year.

3. Consider coming early on Sunday mornings before the service (8:45) and participate in the pre-service prayer time.

Study 1: Praying Scripture

Head

Heart

1. Have you tried to use Scripture as a guide for your prayer before? If not, why?

2. We tend to think of prayer as trying to influence God, but has prayer ever changed you?

Hands

1. Pick one of the following passages to memorize: Amos 4:13; John 3:16;  or Ephesians 3:14-21. As you work to memorize it, try to use it as a guide for your prayers this week. 

Study 2: The Lord's Prayer

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

your will be done,

    on earth as it is in heaven.”

– Matthew 6:9-10

For the rest of the week we will be looking at the Lord’s Prayer to guide our own. 

“In chapter 4 (of Revelation) God’s sovereignty is seen as it is already fully acknowledged in heaven. This establishes it as the true reality which must in the end also prevail on earth. On earth the powers of evil challenge God’s role and even masquerade as the ultimate power of all things, claiming divinity. But heaven in the sphere of ultimate reality: what is true in heaven must become true on earth. 

– Richard Bauckham

Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 190. For what do we pray in the first request?

In the first request (hallowed be your name), we acknowledge that we and all human beings are completely incapable of honoring God properly and are even disinclined to do so. We pray then that he would by his grace enable and incline us and others to know, to acknowledge, and to esteem him highly, his titles, attributes, regulations, word, works, and everything else by which he is pleased to reveal himself, and to glorify him in thought, word, and deed, to the effect that he would thwart and do away with atheism, spiritual ignorance, idolatry or any kind of desecration, and whatever else dishonors him, and that by his invincible providence, he would direct and regulate everything to his own glory.

Head

1. How do we address God in prayer? 

2. What is the significance of this?

3. What does it mean to “hallow” a name?

4. What is God’s kingdom?  

Heart

1. When you address God as your father, do you really believe that? Why or why not? 

2. Do you find it difficult to hallow God’s name?

3. Are your prayers more concerned with your will being done or God’s?

4. Where do you find it hardest to trust in God’s will?

Hands

1. All Christian churches are part of God’s kingdom. Take a few minutes to pray for some of the other churches we have a relationship  with. Pray for God to use them in growing his kingdom. Consider reaching out to one or two of these churches to let them know you are praying for them and see if they have specific ways you can pray.

   1. Copper Hills Church, Herriman

   2. Corner Canyon Church, Draper

   3. Salt Lake Chin Church (uses our building for worship on Sunday evenings)

   4. The Mission Church, South Jordan

   5. Crossroads Church, Sandy

   6. River Community Church, West Jordan

   7. Crosstower Church, West Jordan

2. Take some of the areas it’s hardest for you to trust God’s will and pray for him to help you trust him more. 

Study 3: The Lord's Prayer

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

    as we also have forgiven our debtors.

– Matthew 6:13

In the Western World we have become so accustomed to our extraordinary affluence that for many of us this petition has lost its power. That can only be because we have lost a biblical view of life. The food we eat is our only because God upholds our universe and gives us seedtime and harvest. But beyond that, the food we earth nourishes us only because of his blessing.

– Sinclair Ferguson

Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 193. For what do we pray for in the fourth request? 

 In the fourth request (Give us today our daily bread), we acknowledge that in Adam and by our own sin we have forfeited any right to all of the outward blessings of this life, that we deserve to be completely deprived of them by God and to have their use by us cursed, and that the outward blessings of this life are not in and of themselves capable of sustaining us,  nor do we deserve  or actually obtain them by our own efforts, but lust after, acquire, and use them in unlawful ways. We pray then for ourselves and others that both they and we may wait daily on God’s providential allowance of the outward blessings of this life and that, according to what his fatherly wisdom decides is best, we may lawfully enjoy his free gift of what is sufficient for us. We also pray that God would continue to bless us with sufficient worldly goods, that they would sustain our needs and be sanctified by us, that we would be satisfied with them, and that God would protect us from anything that undermines our support and sustenance in this world.

Head

1. What do we pray for in verse 11?

2. How much bread do we pray for? What’s the significance of this?

3. What’s the relationship between forgiveness and being forgiven?

Heart

1. Daily bread seems to indicate we should pray for what we need each day. Do you pray this way, or do you find yourself praying for more than “daily” bread. Why?

2. Who do you struggle to forgive? 

3. What anger are you holding in your heart?

Hands

1. Take a few minutes to meditate and pray this prayer:

O Lord, in whom is the source and inexhaustible fountain of all good things, pour out thy blessing upon us, and sanctify to our use the meat and drink which are the gifts of thy kindness towards us, that we, using them soberly and frugally as thou enjoinest, may eat with pure conscience. Grant, also, that we may always both with true heartfelt gratitude acknowledge, and with our lips proclaim thee our Father and the giver of all good, and, while enjoying bodily nourishment, aspire with special longing of heart after the bread of they doctrine, by which our souls may be nourished in the hope of eternal life, through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen

– John Calvin

Study 4: The Lord’s Prayer

13 And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from the evil one.’

– Matthew 6:13

Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 195. For what do we pray in the sixth request?

In the sixth request (And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one1), we acknowledge that God, who is completely wise, righteous, and gracious, may, for various holy and just purposes, ordain circumstances by which we become the target of temptations, are defeated, and temporarily taken captive by them; that Satan, the world, and our own sinful natures have a powerful potential to turn us aside from righteousness and trap us; and that even after our sins have been forgiven, we are naturally so depraved, spiritually weak, and inattentive to our spiritual condition that we are not only prey to temptations and willingly expose ourselves to them but are completely incapable of and unwilling to resist, get away from, or use them as opportunities for our spiritual growth—and consequently we deserve to be left under their power. We pray then that God would so rule over the world and everyone in it, so curb our sinful natures and restrain Satan, so ordain all things, so endow and bless all the means of grace and sharpen our awareness in the use of them, that we and all his people may be providentially spared from being tempted to sin; or, if tempted, that his Spirit would powerfully support and enable us to resist during the time of our temptation; or, should we fall, that we would be raised again and restored, with the experience being thereby sanctified and used for our spiritual growth; and that our sanctification and salvation may be made complete, Satan trampled under our feet, and we become completely delivered from sin, temptation, and all evil, forever.

Head

1. How could God lead us into temptation? Look up James 1:13-15. How do you think Jesus' prayer relates to what James writes? 

2. How could God deliver us from the evil one?

Heart

1. Where do you commonly succumb to temptation?

2. Where do you intentionally not avoid temptation? 

3. Where do you allow yourself to indulge in smaller temptations that seem innocent?

Hands

1. Pray for God to help deliver you from those temptations in the areas you struggle most.

2. Pray that God would help you to be vigilant to fight even small temptations before they get larger.

3. Pray that God would help you to see his way of living as more life-giving than what those temptations offer.

Study 1: Misunderstandings and Obstacles to Prayer

“Sometimes when we say, "God is silent," what's really going on is that he hasn't told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in the blanks of the story we are creating. But with his own stories, the ones we live in, he is seldom silent.” ― Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

Head

Heart

1. In the video, we talk about four things that prayer is not. Have you been tempted to think any of these things? In what ways?

2. Which of the three obstacles to prayer do you struggle with most? Why?

3. What else keeps you from praying?

Hands

1. For each of the obstacles you came up with, pray that God would help you trust more in his promises than your feelings. Try and get specific. For example:

   “Father, I often feel unworthy to pray to you. I’m ashamed of my apathy and sin. I just screwed up this morning, and the last thing I want to do is come before you. But help me to see that I can boldly come to you because of Christ. Help me to realize the most important thing when I feel unworthy is to come before your throne of grace.”

Study 2: Prayers of Repentance

Read Psalm 51:1-12

Head

1. In verse 1, what is David asking forgiveness for?

2. Why do you think David says, “Against you, you only have I sinned?”

3. What role does David play in his repentance? What role does God play?

Note: All David brings is his acknowledgement of his own sin. God does all the work of blotting out, cleansing, restoring, etc.

Heart

1. When you’ve sinned, do you find yourself wanting to do a bunch of things to somehow restore your relationship with God?

2. Does that match what we see in Psalm 51?

3. Verse 3 says, “For I know my transgressions.” Why do you think it’s important to know your sins specifically instead of just repenting generally for sin?

4. Do you find it easy or difficult to say prayers of repentance to God? Why or why not?

5. When you pray do you find yourself relying on your effort or God’s unfailing love and compassion (verse 1) to experience forgiveness?

6. Are there any sins you’ve not prayed forgiveness for?

Hands

1. Take the words from Psalm 51 and turn them into your own prayer to God.

Study 3: Prayers of Lament

Read Psalm 42

Head

The biblical psalms feature several remarkable expressions of lament. In these laments, the worshiping community expresses grief and frustration at the brokenness of the world, even in situations in which the community is not directly culpable or blameworthy. These biblical laments witness to God’s desire for honesty in worship. No experience in life is too difficult to be brought before God. A lament is an implicit act of faith in which the community of faith turns to God as its only source of hope and comfort. Faith and hope are explicit in Psalm 42, for example, in which the lament “My tears have been my food day and night” leads to a statement of resolute trust: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (vv. 3, 5-6, NRSV).

– The Worship Sourcebook

1. The Psalmist longs to be with God, but what situation does he find himself in?

2. What imagery does he use? How does that imagery highlight the suffering of the Psalmist?

3. What are some of the ways the Psalmist uses water imagery? (Hint: look at verses 1 & 7)

4. What do you think the Psalmist is doing in verses 5 & 11?

Heart

1. In what situations have you found yourself doubting God or believing he is far from you?

2. The Psalmist describes tears as his only food. Have you ever been so distraught you lost all appetite? When? What was its effect on you?

3. The Psalmist longs for past days when he worshiped with God’s people at the temple, but now he can’t. Where do you find yourself longing for the past? Why?

4. How do you think verse 5 & 11 speak to that longing?

Hands

1. Lament is praying our pain. Write down a prayer that gives words and images to the pain you feel.

2. Martin Lloyd-Jones said that the answer to the Psalmist’s struggle was that he listened to himself instead of talking to himself of God’s goodness. What promises of God do you need to remind yourself of? Where are you letting pain or fear control you more than you are God’s promises?

Go Deeper

The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow ourself to talk to us instead of talking to ourself. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience. The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.

– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, pp. 20-21

Study 4: Review

Head

Heart

1. Where do you wish to grow in prayer? For instance, would you like to pray more regularly or with other people? Something else?

2. Of the types of prayers we’ve looked at so far (worship, thanksgiving, requests, repentance, lament) which type do you naturally do most often? Which types of prayers are hardest for you?

Hands

1. With the type of prayer that comes hardest to you, set a timer for seven minutes and pray that type of prayer. Use one of the example scriptures in the previous lessons (or find your own) to help guide you. Don’t be afraid of times of silence or repeating yourself. Simply spend some time exercising your prayer muscles where they seem weak.