Prayer
Pre-service prayer at ChelseaPraying, which is simply talking and listening to God, is one of the most powerful things we do as followers of Jesus.
Pray For Spiritual Renewal, Wednesdays 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Join the prayer movement and contribute to the work of God’s Spirit: pray with Christians across New York every Wednesday, noon to 1 p.m. Find a meeting or start your own.
We suggest praying through the six sections of the Lord’s Prayer, 10 minutes per section:
- The Father’s Name: Our Father, hallowed be your name
- The Father’s Will: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven
- The Father’s Provision: Give us today our daily bread
- The Father’s Forgiveness: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
- The Father’s Protection: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
- The Father’s Kingdom: For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever
Learn About Prayer
While the best way to learn how to pray is simply by praying—alone and with other people (check out a few opportunities below)—there is also a lot to learn about what prayer is and why it matters.
Listen
Listen to some Trinity Grace teaching on prayer:
- The Sacrament of Prayer download sermon | download teaching slides
- Becoming a People of Authority download sermon
- Becoming a People of Prayer download sermon
- Kingdom Prayer (from the Sermon on the Mount) download sermon
Read
A few books and resources on prayer that we have found very helpful:
- Prayer, Richard Foster: A great reference on many, many types of prayer
- Intercessory Prayer, Dutch Sheets: Our prayers matter—learning why this is true and how to pray effectively
- Hearing God, Dallas Willard: Learning to recognize God’s voice
- The Beginner’s Guide to the Gift of Prophecy, Jack Deere: Another on learning to recognize God’s voice
- The Divine Hours in three volumes (Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter): Scripture-based liturgical prayers; four prayers each day.
Online Prayer Resources
Both these sites are updated daily:
- Fixed-hour prayer: Based on psalms and scriptures, an online version of Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours
- Daily contemplative prayer at Sacred Space: From the Irish Jesuits, a guided meditation on scripture
Pray With Us
Before or after any of our worship gatherings, during the week, or at one of our prayer workshops (contact Chanel for the next dates): join us in meeting with God!
Sundays
Each of our neighborhood churches has pre-service prayer every Sunday. This is great opportunity to practice hearing the voice of God and also care for our church. All welcome!
- Eastside, 8:30 a.m.
- Westside, 9:45 a.m.
- Chelsea, 3:30 p.m.
- Brooklyn, 9:30 a.m.
- Brooklyn, 4 p.m.
- East Village, 3:30 p.m.
During the Week
People in each of our churches gather regularly during the week to pray for our neighborhoods and each other. Up-to-date info on our neighborhood prayer gatherings is available here.
Intercessory prayer is spiritual defiance of what is in the way of what God has promised. Intercession visualizes an alternative future to the one apparently fated by the momentum of current forces. Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present.
