The Importance Of Prayer In Spirituality

Murray states, “We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth”. The importance of prayer in the Christian faith is doubtless, this does not ensure the clarity with which it can be explained. Nevertheless, prayer can be expressed as both a highly unique individual experience, and a collective community expression; prayer is central to the Spirituality & Discipleship module. Prayer does not merely resonate within the module, but is a theme that runs through the centre of each tradition. Prayer is ubiquitous throughout all spiritual traditions and the evidence for this is lucid within the module guide where prayer is in the title

The Nigerian Charismatic movement put forward the idea that they have systems in place to prevent and deal with the problems that arise. They state, “doctrines, services, preachings and revelations help them to plan effectively against problems”. It is assertable that these systems are informed by prayer, Jones, Wainwright, et al. claim that the Charismatic and Pentecostal tradition is centred in prayer and therefore the level of spirituality and lived liturgy runs throughout everything they do. This inspires not only a singular church unity, but a wider agreement, “The source of this ecumenical ministry is to be found in his prayer, both private and

Jesus grew up as a Jew, and the impact of the prayers and scripture reading practices at the synagogues should not be ignored. Although the specific details of these are unobtainable there were many practices at the time which included daily prayer at different times of the day (e.g. Shema and the Tefillah). Repetitive daily prayer is a simple but common style that has been maintained by many spiritual traditions. Lamm promotes the Shema, contending “to profess the unity of God and the love for God is life affirming”. It could be alleged that the content of this prayer influenced Jesus, who regularly disappears to pray, only to return energised, focused and undeniably full of life. It must be recognised that this is a speculative and almost ungrounded assumption. Critics of the Shema may argue that it’s style is archaic and does not engage participants, Lamm discusses the possibility that reciting the Shema easily becomes part of law and not spirituality; Lamm concludes that this prayer requires spiritual intention. This style of prayer certainly is in juxtaposition with the free form prayers encouraged by the charismatic and pentecostal traditions, to the detriment of neither. It perhaps is an example of personal preference, some people prefer and benefit from rigid repetition and others prefer to experiment outside of well known structures. Jesus, whose