– Written by David Baker, Resource Manager at Cairn
Prayer; it is one of those things we all have a different reaction to: Like many who have been around the Church for a while, I have an aversion to the dry and dusty Church prayer meeting, where a few (usually older ladies) gather and present God with their shopping list.
However, I have also been in gatherings where the room is filled with passionate, faith-filled people crying out to God for their church or mission.
The truth is, I know that prayer is important, it is necessary for Church to grow, and to successfully engage with the community they are placed in. But, I have come to realise (far too late in life) that my view of prayer was too narrow, and at its heart – merely functional.
Over the last few years, I have drawn a lot of inspiration from the first missionaries/church planters in Scotland. The Celts had an approach to reaching the tribes of Scotland that chimes well with reaching the largely disengaged (dare I say post-Christendom) Scotland of our day.
The first thing that the early Monks did, as they turned up with a “church planting” team to establish a monastic community in a new area, was to fast and pray for 40 days. This was done partly to “cleanse the land”, to stand in opposition to pagan spiritual authority and break any power it had to restrict the effectiveness of the message they brought (although they did adopt and Christianize many aspects of the pagan culture).
The fasting and prayer were also to reinforce the deeply held value of working from prayer and rest. The monastic life was made up of prayer, Study and work, and indeed the monastic sites became centres of not just prayer but of industry. I recently visited the monastic site at Portmahomack, where there was evidence not just of copying out scripture, but of metalworking, farming and exquisite stone carving.
All great stuff, after all, I would never have argued that prayer is an important part of what we do in Church and mission. We are happy to quote the verse; “unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labour in vain”, but if I am honest, prayer was simply what we do before we work. I was essentially asking God to bless and prosper the work that I was about to do.
That is not how the monks saw it, prayer was not simply the preparation – but it was the work, and as the community became established prayer would form the activity of up to a third of the day.
So what did they know about prayer that we can (re)discover?
It seems to me that these early Christians understood that prayer is not simply one activity; that of “bringing your requests to God”, but that there is a vast breadth to prayer.
They used liturgy as a framework for prayer, reflecting deeply on familiar words, often in part drawn from scripture, to anchor their faith in the stories and truth of the bible.
They spent time in adoration and/or contemplation away from the distractions of their busy lives. This time simply being with God fostered a deep connection with (or love for) the divine. So much so that the places that they found to pray either were or became “thin places” where it was (is) somehow easier to connect with the divine.
They used their whole body when they were praying, going way beyond our practice of kneeling to pray, to spending whole nights standing in rivers or the sea to ensure they focused on their prayers.
There are many instances in the stories of these monks of prayer being used to bring healing, or for miracles to happen in answer to prayers. These include fires being averted to keep buildings from being burned, locked doors being opened, and on occasion, pagan priests being blinded or harmed to prevent them from interfering with the mission.
I wonder if our practice and understanding of prayer need to be deeper and broader. As we establish new churches and missional communities, have we brought a narrow understanding that prayer is what we do before we start, and what we say in our prayer meetings? As a movement, we want to see a vibrant church in every place and network across the Celtic lands. If this is to happen, we need to explore and embrace prayer as our practice and our foundation. Becoming people who are shaped by the practices of worship and prayer; to go deeper into our relationship with God.
And our prayer needs to be the work, rather than the preparation for the work – and we need to value the prophetic and miraculous alongside the `work` we can do in serving our communities and building relationships with those around us.
David Baker
