Prayer is ‘all the ways in which we communicate and commune with God’ (Ruth Haley Barton). You can pray in all sorts of ways – in silence on your own; out loud in a group; using prepared words such as others’ prayers or psalms; singing and making music; doing activities such as arts and crafts; and many more besides.

Prayer can be scheduled, perhaps for the same time every day, or can take place spontaneously, perhaps when you need to shoot a quick request to God (some people call this an ‘arrow prayer’).

Wardie Church has a dedicated prayer area where you can sit comfortably, hang prayer requests on our prayer tree or write your thoughts on paper panels, and offer your own prayers in a quiet space.

Wardie Church’s Prayer Discovery Group meets on most Wednesday nights in the prayer area, to pray and to talk about prayer. The group aims to help people pray, and we will regularly add suggested prayer activities and resources below. If you’d like to find out more about our Prayer Discovery Group, contact Cathy Ballantine. In Lent we are holding a series of Lent Quiet Spaces on Wednesday nights. Find out more.

Wardie Parish Church also holds Friday Prayers every Friday at 9.30am and everyone is welcome. Buzz at the Netherby Road door for entry. If you’d like to find out more about these prayer meetings, or if you have something you’d like us to pray for, contact Rev. Dolly Purnell.

What’s on this page:

• Try Praying
• Prayer A to Z
• A is for Art
• B is for Breath Prayer
• C is for Candle
• D is for Discernment
• E is for Examen
• F is for Father

Try Praying

You may have noticed our ‘Try Praying’ banner outside the church. Inside the Netherby Road door and in the prayer area there are a number of ‘Try Praying’ booklets that you’re very welcome to take. ‘Try Praying’ has a useful website too.

Prayer A to Z

The Prayer Discovery Group is creating an A to Z of prayer for 2025. Every fortnight we’ll explore a new letter to help you think about new ways to pray. By the end of 2025, we’ll have reached Z! Check below every couple of weeks to see what we’ve suggested under the latest letter of the alphabet.

A is for Art

In the prayer area at the back of the church the Prayer Discovery Group has put up a few artworks that help us think about God. ‘Christ Blessing’ (‘The Saviour of the World’) by El Greco, a picture of Jesus blessing the world, is one of them – you can see the original at the National Galleries of Scotland in the centre of town.

Rembrandt’s ‘Return of the Prodigal Son’ (below) is a favourite of many of those in the group, with its depiction of our Heavenly Father’s unconditional love and acceptance despite, or most likely because of, the shocking state of his wayward child. Henri Nouwen was so deeply inspired by this painting that he wrote a book about it: The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. This book and Rembrandt’s painting are discussed in one of Pete Greig’s sermons.

The Prayer Discovery Group also discussed Christian icons. Watch a video about icons and their imagery.

We thanked God for creative people, created things and God’s own creation. This opened our eyes to the creativity all around us, which made us even more thankful! Why don’t you study a painting or another type of artwork and then spend some time thanking God for creativity, created things and his creation?

If you have a favourite artwork that makes you think of God, please add it to the display in the prayer area next time you’re in church. There will be some sticky tack there for you to stick your artwork to the wood panelling.

B is for Breath Prayer

Breath prayers are repetitive prayers you say as you breathe in and out. As Richard Foster writes in Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, they are a way to ‘pray without ceasing’. A breath prayer is something you can do at any time, for example when you’re out walking or at home doing chores, in order to turn to God and remind yourself he’s there with you.

Breath prayers are brief (usually five to nine words), they express intimacy with God, are an expression of dependence on him, and are often some sort of request. For example:

Jesus Christ, Son of God // have mercy on me (this is called ‘The Jesus Prayer’)

My God and my rock // I trust in you

His faithful love // endures forever

Loving Father // help me hear your voice.

God’s Old Testament name, ‘Yahweh’, can also be used as a breath prayer, with the first syllable on the in-breath and the second on the out-breath.

Richard Foster, on p. 129 of Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, suggests the following steps to creating your own breath prayer:

• Find a quiet space and sit in silence, becoming aware of the loving presence of God. It might help to imagine God calling you by name.
• Ask yourself ‘What do you want?’ The answer might be a single word, such as ‘strength’ or ‘peace’, or a phrase, such as ‘to feel your love’.
• Connect this phrase with the name you most like to use for God, such as ‘Lord Jesus’ or ‘Loving Father’.
• Write out your breath prayer, making sure it’s easy to say in one breath.
• Get used to saying your breath prayer over the next few days. You might decide to shorten or change it slightly with use. Try to use the same breath prayer for a long enough period (for example, a few weeks) to give it time to become utterly familiar.

In the prayer area at the back of the church, the Prayer Discovery Group has written on sticky notes a few breath prayers that help us. Please add to our ideas!

C is for Candle

The idea of Jesus as a light in our darkness is an important theme in our Christian faith. Candles are often used in churches to represent this.

As some of us found in the January storms, sometimes a candle can become essential. Previous generations were much more used to this idea than we are. As we are so accustomed to producing light at the flick of a switch, it can be a useful aid to our prayer to light a candle and consider God as our necessary light, hope and help.

Why don’t you light a candle in your prayer time? Below, we’ve suggested seven Bible passages, one for each day of one week, that you could hold in your mind while sitting with your candle.

If you don’t have a candle at home, we’ve put a few at the back of the church in the prayer area for you to take away. Or here’s a virtual candle online.

John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 27:14

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord.

Deuteronomy 31:8

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Philippians 4:5–7

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 40:31

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Psalm 139: 23–24

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

D is for Discernment

Discernment “is the capacity to recognise and respond to the presence and activity of God – both in the ordinary moments and in the larger decisions of our lives” (Ruth Haley Barton).

Discernment isn’t just about asking God to help us make a decision. In fact, we might find that if we ask him one question, there’s a deeper question behind it that we need to seek an answer to.

To discern the will of God:

• we need to believe that he is good, wanting the best for us.
• we need to see love as our ultimate calling. We are called to be loved by God, to love him, and to love others.
• we need to be willing to follow his lead. If we aren’t willing, we can pray for willingness, as in Psalm 51: ‘Grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.’

We often come to God in prayer with a fixed idea of the outcome we would like in a certain situation. But for God’s kingdom to come, sometimes our own personal kingdom has to go. In the Prayer Discovery Group we did an exercise together to practise willingness. You can easily do this on your own at home.

• Think of a situation that you talk to God about fairly often. Is there an outcome that you’re hanging onto, where you’re saying ‘I need things to turn out this way’?
• Clench your fists tightly for a few seconds, holding this outcome within them.
• Then, slowly, open up your hands, saying ‘Lord, your will be done’.

Richard Foster has written a prayer of relinquishment that you might find useful at this point:

A Prayer of Relinquishment

Today, O Lord, I yield myself to You.
May Your will be my delight today.
May Your way have perfect sway in me.
May Your love be the pattern of my living.
I surrender to You my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions.
Do with them what You will, when You will, as You will.
I place into Your loving care my family, my friends, my future.
Care for them with a care that I can never give.
I release into Your hands my need to control, my craving for status, my fear of obscurity.
Eradicate the evil, purify the good, and establish Your kingdom on earth.
For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Practising willingness helps us get to a place of quiet trust in God. Psalm 131 has a wonderful picture of this:

My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Try sitting quietly for a while, practising this child-like contentment in God’s presence.

The points above come from a video training series on discernment, which you can access at this link. There are many books on discerning God’s will, too. How to Hear God by Pete Greig is excellent. There’s a copy in the prayer area at the back of the church.

To discern God’s presence and understand his will as we move forward, it’s useful to realise where he has already been working in our lives. This practice is called Examen, and we’ll be looking at that under the letter E.

E is for Examen

The Examen was created 500 years ago by St Ignatius of Loyola, and many people practise it daily. It involves looking backwards to try to recognise where and when God has been with us. If we make a habit of this, we gradually learn to recognise God in our lives as we go forwards, too.

A good Bible passage for understanding the Examen is the Road to Emmaus story (Luke 24:13–35). After his resurrection, Jesus joins of his two followers on the Road to Emmaus, talking with them along the way about how the Scriptures had predicted recent events. It is only when the travellers get to their destination, invite Jesus in and see him breaking bread at supper that they recognise him. At this point, they look at each other and say: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24:32) The Examen tries to pinpoint those moments in our day when our hearts were burning within us as God revealed something of himself to us.

In The Familiar Stranger, his recent book on the Holy Spirit, Tyler Staton lays out the usual steps in the practice of Examen:

1. Gratitude: Note the ways you have experienced God’s loving presence today and thank the Giver for his gifts.
2. Ask: Invite the Spirit to provide insight beyond human capacity.
3. Review: Review the day you’ve just lived in partnership with the Spirit, noting the experiences of God’s nearness while also checking for the invitations you may have missed – moments when God passed right by, unnoticed or ignored.
4. Repentance: Ask forgiveness for any moments you rejected, ignored, or rebelled against God’s invitation to you.
5. Renewal: Looking ahead to the next twenty-four hours, resolve to live in concert with God’s direction.

Tyler practises these steps on the way home from work, and this is a good time to do it – when much of your day is done but you’re not too tired. Many people, however, practise the Examen later on – at bedtime or midway through the evening.

If you’re interested in practising the Examen, there are a couple of handy apps that might help you:

Lectio365 guides you through three different prayer times each day. The evening session involves looking back to ask God where he has been at work in our lives, and to ask forgiveness for the times when we have fallen short today.

Reimagining the Examen is based on a book by Mark Thibodeaux, SJ, and offers different Examens to pray through depending on what is going on in your life. We tried one of these together in the Prayer Discovery Group.

F is for Father

If you’re not sure where to start with prayer, why not say the Lord’s Prayer? After all, it’s the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in response to their request ‘Lord, teach us to pray’, and it’s a prayer you’re likely to be familiar with.

Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours
Now and forever
Amen

People have written whole books about the Lord’s Prayer. One of them is How to Pray by Pete Greig, which you can find in the prayer area at the back of the church sanctuary.

The first half of the Lord’s Prayer focuses on God’s will, with ‘your’ phrases. The second half focuses on what we need: ‘us’ phrases. But it starts with ‘Our Father’.

Seeing God as a loving father is fundamental to being able to pray with freedom and confidence, according to Pete Greig:

‘Most people’s biggest problem with prayer is God. They envisage him scowling, perpetually disapproving, invariably disappointed and needing to be placated or persuaded in prayer … But Jesus says something completely different. He makes it clear, in his parable of the Prodigal, that the God to whom we pray is extravagantly kind: a father who comes running towards us with arms flung wide, whenever we approach him, wherever we’ve been and whatever we’ve done.’

Why not spend some time focusing in prayer on God as your loving Father? It says in Romans 8:15 (ERV version) ‘The Spirit that we have makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit we cry out, “Abba, Father.”’

It’s the Holy Spirit within us who affirms this relationship with God, and in the simplest and most familiar words. ‘Abba’ can mean ‘Daddy’, ‘Papa’ – even ‘Dad’, according to a Bible Gateway blog. So just approach him simply and openly, like a child would, and trust in his loving response to you.

If you need help to imagine God in this way, you can hear God’s words to you directly through the ‘Father’s love letter: an intimate message from God to you’. This gathers a range of verses from the Bible into a message of love and acceptance. You can find this in video or written form at https://www.fathersloveletter.com/