Keystone Prayer

We have been doing a lot of talking about prayer around Christ Crossman lately. While we have always known that prayer is important, we are coming to understand that it is a "keystone" habit for our congregation. A keystone is that stone at the top of the arch that holds the whole structure together.

Today, I had one of those aha moments where something I heard made so much sense. It was so obvious that I couldn’t see why I didn’t think about it before. “It” is a practice the presenter called “breakthrough” prayer. It is something I have actually done myself, but I had never thought to invite others into the practice as well.

What is the practice? Spending time in prayer in a particular place for those who will be in the space and for what will be happening there. So tonight, at the end of our Bead and a Prayer small group, we went into the sanctuary and each prayed silently, walking around the space at times, and sitting at other times. We prayed for meeting God there, for the people who would be in the space for worship, for those who take part in leadership, for those coming for the first time. I don’t know how each person chose the places they went, or how they prayed. I do know that this is important for us in moving forward.

I invite every group meeting for ministry, for fellowship, for study to close each session with this kind of prayer. Choose a different area each time. Bathe our space in prayer so that we will be ready to meet God, and to invite others to meet God in this space.

Take the practice into your own home as well, and into the places where you work.

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.