The best place to start any journey is in prayer. And as we learn in the pages of scripture, our prayers for one another are just as powerful as the ones we offer for ourselves.
Alexander Campbell said that “faith and repentance change the state of a man’s heart to God” (The Christian System). As we approach God in prayer, the divine within each of us is sparked and we are renewed in spirit and in mind. It is because of prayer that we can commune with God. And in prayer our communion with one another as Christians is strengthened and deepened.
To be sure, the example Jesus gives us in the Gospels is to go into our own “closets” and pray secretly. And that is certainly an integral part of our prayer lives. We see just as readily in the writings of the Apostle Paul, however, that prayers for one another, and praying together in gathered worship, is equally important.
We invite you to join with us for praying for the unity of all persons of faith. It is a unity which is best expressed at the Lord’s Table – and that Table takes center stage for our Great Communion celebration.
Getting Started With Prayer
In his 1520 treatise Christian Liberty, Martin Luther says that “since the promises of God are holy, true, righteous, free, and peaceful words, full of goodness, the soul which clings to them with a firm faith will be so closely united with them and altogether absorbed by them that it will share in all their power.” In prayer our souls cling to the things of God and, ultimately, to God himself. As we begin the Great Communion celebration in prayer we will find ourselves uniting with the holiness and peace of God and receiving his power for our lives.