5:17 church

At our Community Groups (CGs) this week we looked at something of an ‘inventory for Christians’ – a non-exhaustive list of components of the Christian life.  The idea behind the list is to recognise that life as God’s people is holistic or multi-faceted, and growing in our relationships with Him isn’t uni-dimensional or simplistic.

There were 3 categories to measure our growth by:

• Character (spiritual formation) – developing in personal godliness, and thus reflecting the heart of a Christian character
• Knowledge (theological formation) – developing a Christian mind based on a working understanding of the Bible
• Skills (ministry formation) – developing skills and an attitude of Christlike service

…and a common element of stunted character growth for our CG members was prayerfulness.  It was great to see lots of us wanting to grow in this.  I myself have been a bit of a silly duffer for many months – knowing that I pray best when prompted by a personal prayer schedule, but not having an updated one to work (or pray) from – because of my own tardiness in putting a fresh one together.  So last night at CG was the perfect opportunity to do so, and my prayer life has already benefitted!  I used it this afternoon to pray from and it helped my brain enormously to have something concrete to work from and concentrate on.  

Does that mean I’m left-brained?  I think it might.  So I thought if I shared my left-brained praying method with you, other left-brainers out there might similarly benefit.  Hope this works –  

It looks a bit clumsy here, but you get the idea.  Just fill it in for the week – all 7 columns and 4-5+ rows – and voila, a personalised, specific, other-person-centred prayer schedule.  

As for prayer points – what a great act of service to ask someone what you can pray for them, or make up some prayer points – based on the plethora in God’s word.  :)