Hello  

To help us be a worldwide caring community, praying community and community of power, we are sending out monthly prayer and bible reading resources, including bible reading plans, memory verses and some teaching on prayer.

We hope you find these resources useful and helpful.

Bible Reading Plans

Read the Bible with us this month as we look at a reading plan about personal prayer. You can access it on the YouVersion app or website.

Memory Verse

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

Prayer Teaching

Personal Prayer

Sara Jukes

Personal prayer is very important to help us connect relationally with God but also so He can speak to us and guide us. Spending time each day talking and listening is essential to asking God for help and guidance, saying thank you and being transformed to be more like Jesus. Spending time in prayer causes us to grow closer to God, align ourselves to His will, gives us strength and hope, and widens our perspective to pray and intercede for others.

We can use many tools to help us to pray and keep focused:

• Keep a prayer journal (you could use the green notebook we gave out on Vision Sunday if you have one)
• Pray the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
• Use the Lectio 365 app
• Pray through the Open Doors Watch List countries and Prayer requests

Another way we can pray to build us up personally and for various situations is by praying in tongues. This is where people, by the power of the Holy Spirit, vocalise sounds and syllables that are not their own language (Acts 2:8-11) or are a spiritual language (1 Corinthians 14:2). This special gift for everyone builds us up, expands our relationship with God and gives us a tool to pray when perhaps we don’t know what or how to pray.

For today, my encouragement to you is this: if you speak in tongues keep doing it, regularly; if you don’t, follow the steps below in the extras to help you get started.

Added Extras

Steps to asking for the gift of speaking in tongues:

1. Ask God for the gift of tongues
2. Don’t overthink it or work it up. We receive spiritual gifts by faith through the Holy Spirit
3. Focus on worshipping God, maybe repeating the name, “Jesus” over and over and allow any sounds that naturally flow from your spirit to be spoken too
4. Don’t worry if nothing comes or the sounds seems awkward or repetitive. Like a child learning to talk, sounds and syllables build
5. Rejoice upon receiving the gift
6. You could also come on Sunday and ask the Prayer Team to pray with you