2024 – A YEAR OF PRAYER

At our Convocation’s annual Convention last year it was resolved that 2024 should be a year of prayer.  This will mean a range of different things for our congregations across Europe.  For us at Ascension, we should like to be more intentional about prayer throughout the year and will feature articles and other inputs to help us in this endeavor.

One change that you will notice at the end of the weekly liturgy bulletin is a modified call to prayer.  Throughout 2024 we shall highlight the Anglican Communion cycle of prayer as well as the Convocation cycle of prayer under this link:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/account-media/19323/uploaded/c/0e16843758_1701189481_convocationprayercycle2024.pdf

We will invite prayer for our siblings in Christ in the Emmauskirche, as well as for our own community.

 Should you have ideas to help us honor 2024 as a year of prayer, please make contact with the wardens.

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Prayer is responding to God, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, by thought and by deeds, with or without words (BCP 856).

To pray is to make our hearts ready to experience the love of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.  A discipline of prayer changes the way that we think about our lives, because it creates new habits of heart and mind.  Prayer opens us more deeply to the transforming grace of God.  We enter into God’s presence, allowing the Holy Spirit to pray in us.  https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/learning-pray

Jesus teaches us to come before God with humble hearts, boldly offering our thanksgivings and concerns to God or simply listening for God’s voice in our lives and in the world. Whether in thought, word or deed, individually or corporately, when we pray we invite and dwell in God’s loving presence.

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love/pray/

Prayer is giving our attention to God in a two-way spiritual relationship where we talk to God and also listen to Him.  We don’t pray on our own, but alongside Christians throughout the ages and around the world.  Prayer brings us in touch with God and others, and Christians pray in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.  As we pray, we offer every situation to God, and God uses our prayers to bring love and justice into the world.  https://www.london.anglican.org/belief/prayer/