Or to quote James Alison “It’s a lot more fun in here.”

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Prayer is the most ancient form of dialogue with God, a time when we are summoned into God’s world to sing, to lament, to say thanks, to listen, to play. It is a simple yet holy conversation as we engage those intimate and alien things, both within ourselves and throughout our world.

At Mercy Seat we like to pray. On Sunday evenings in worship we, the community, will pray as we circle around Word and Sacrament moving together through the ancient liturgy. As we sing and speak, we tell again the story of Christ: his teachings, his death and his resurrection. Gently, over time, through liturgy’s repetition, we begin to recognize that our own lives bear the same shape as Christ’s, full of both cross and resurrection. Because of Christ and who he is, this shape is an utterly hopeful and beautiful thing.

Of course, anyone can pray on their own, anytime or anywhere. But intentional prayer in community is different. It teaches us to be disciplined with ourselves, to be accountable to the other near us, and honest before God. In other words, we do not pray only in times of need, but out of the daily cadence of our fractured lives. In subtle and tender ways, the discipline of prayer in community leads into a new ways of seeing, ways of listening, ways of being.

On Friday afternoons between autumn and spring, we’ll gather as a community and pray, using the old and beautiful Psalms, and a Gospel reading or two. And we’ll also be silent, for it is in the silence we learn to listen, to hear God speak. As we listen and pray leaning into one another, we are summoned into God’s world, where it really is more fun. And without prodding or manipulation, without us even doing much at all, we might begin to notice that our ordinary and humble lives are renewed and blessed, full of extraordinary grace.

Check out our links page for a few good websites on prayer and spirituality.