With Thy Kingdom come starting on Sunday 2nd June we wanted to look at some ways you could develop a prayer life of your own. Thy Kingdom Come is a global prayer movement that invites Christians around the world to pray for more people to come to know Jesus. What started in 2016 as an invitation from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Church of England has grown into an international and ecumenical call to prayer. You can read more about it here: thykingdomcome.global
You can find out more about what is happening over Thy Kingdom Come week here in Derby here: jubilee.org.uk/events/
Prayer In the UK
Prayer is becoming increasingly fashionable in our society. According to a poll by Tearfund over 27 million adults in the UK Prayer. 10 million of them pray regularly and about half of those who pray believe that God hears their prayer. Another startling statistic from the same survey suggested that of the people who say they are not religious 1 in 5 still pray. What is also interesting is that another poll showed that teenagers and people in their twenties are more likely to pray than those of their parents' generation.
So, what do we mean by prayer?
Most Christians believe that prayer is one of, if not the most important activities of our lives. In fact, if you dig deeper it’s part of the very reason we were made by God, to have a love relationship with Him! The reality is that all love relationships require and thrive on communication. The more we communicate, the more we can grow in our love, the more our love will flourish. This is true not only for relationships with our family and friendship groups, it is just as vital in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Developing A Quiet Time
Over recent years we’ve taken the time to look at different ways of developing personal prayer times or Quiet Times. You can read the article about that here: https://jub.onl/2VUv0m3
Helping Our Children Pray
If you are interested in helping children pray, then last year Katherine wrote an article which looks at this very subject! You can read the article here! Thy Kingdom Come have recently produced a Creative Prayer Journal and Adventure Prayer Pack to help you (our Frog club team have copies of the Adventure Prayer Pack which you could pick up on Sunday).
Resources
Eden the Christian bookshop are running an offer at the moment on various prayer resource books including:
3 minute prayers for the morning
3 minute prayer for grandparents
3 minute prayers for coffee breaks
And
How To Pray By Pete Greig (well known for pioneering the 24-7 prayer initiative)
Try Praying
Another resource which is free is called ‘trypraying.’ which is a resource that helps encourage Christians & non-Christians to pray. You can receive a free booklet which gives some details and helps you start praying completely from scratch (trypraying.co.uk).
Teaching On Prayer
Alpha Course
If you want to hear some great teaching on prayer why not listen to the Alpha course teaching on prayer:
From HTB Brighton
From Alpha Film Series
Terry Virgo
You can also listen / read articles from Terry Virgo on prayer here: https://jub.onl/2YUuIgR
Newday
If you are a young person. Newday are currently doing a daily series on prayer on their social media platforms. Check out more on Newday here: www.newdaygeneration.org
We hope you’ve found this brief article helpful. There are multiple events going on in Derby during the Thy Kingdom Come week of prayer – we'd love to encourage you to get involved! Find out more here: https://www.jubilee.org.uk/events/
Recent Jubilee Teaching On Prayer
Recently David Fellingham spoke on the theme of prayer at our Sunday celebration. You can listen to his excellent talk below: