Resting Prayer

Resting Prayer:

• Is one hour of meditative and reflective prayer that is held in the Prayer Room.
• The focus of Resting Prayer is to provide an intentional opportunity for the church to receive encouragement and care from the Lord and practice being still with Him. (Practice waiting.)
• Resting Prayer uses the base of scripture and the medium of music to encourage participants in engaging with Jesus in a meaningful way.
• Resting Prayer is done on one’s own.

Benefits of Resting Prayer:

• Being quiet with Jesus and waiting on Him can be counterintuitive to our human nature and culture of quick fixes, listening in sound bites, ticking boxes, and moving on to the next thing.
• However, in order to live a life according to His call we need time and space with Him to receive His encouragement, care, and exhortation.
• Resting Prayer provides the opportunity for participants to be encouraged and receive comfort from Jesus and to be bolstered in their personal commitment to Jesus, to the Church, and in ministering to those they come into contact in their lives.
• Resting Prayer provides an intentional place to practice being still and waiting to hear the Lord’s voice and encourages participants to take this to their own times of devotion to Jesus

What to do:

• Come into the Prayer Room and find an open spot where you think you will be comfortable. There are blankets for you to use if you are cold.
• Take a few deep breaths and invite Jesus to come speak to you.
• If worries or tasks come to mind, you may want to write them down. This lets your brain know that the information is stored somewhere and you won’t forget to get to it later. We have paper and pens on the back table for you if you don’t have a journal and pen with you. This paper also has lines on it to jot things down.
• As you take breaths and wait for Jesus, close your eyes and listen to the lyrics of the songs being sung or meditate on the scriptures and quotes that will be on the screen at the front of the Prayer Room.
• If there is anything Jesus speaks to you that is impacting we encourage you to write it down either in your journal or on the lines provided.
• You may find that you feel distracted and restless at times, we encourage you to not lose heart. Being still and waiting for God’s still small voice takes practice. Take deep breaths, ask Jesus if there would be anything keeping you from engaging with Him (maybe not, but it doesn’t hurt to ask!), focus on Him, read the scripture, listen to what He may want to say to you through the scriptures, songs and quotes.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 131