PRAYING

Begin with a brief discussion focused upon four questions:

What is prayer?Anticipated Answer: Communication with God.

What is the purpose of prayer? Answer to prompt: To maintain an intimate relationship with God.

What do we presuppose about God when we pray? Anticipated answers:

God exists and hears our prayers.
God cares about each one of us.
God wants us to be in relationship with him.
God will respond and will make his presence felt in our lives.

Why do so few Christians pray? (Why do we pray do seldom or infrequently?) Anticipated answers:

People doubt that God answers prayers.
People doubt that they are worthy of this relationship.
People are afraid of the responsibility and demands of being in relationship with God. If God can hear our prayers, God can hear every one of our thoughts.
People don't make it a habit or take time.

Have students share the way that they prayer and the form their prayers take? What kinds of things do they say? Where do they prayer? When do they pray? How do they pray? With head bowed? With hands clasped?

Explain to the students that there are many different ways to prayer and that you will be exploring just a few of these. The following examples are, for the most part, meditative prayers.

The JESUS PRAYER

The "Jesus Prayer" comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It was introduced to me through J.D. Salinger's Book, Frannie and Zooey, a novel in which the female character becomes mentally ill by obsessively reciting the prayer. Zooey had read The Way of the Pilgrim, a classic work of Russian spirituality. In this work a pilgrim attempts to learn what Paul meant by "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess 5: 17). Given that Paul is writing to a church suffering persecution, I suspect that he meant, "Don't give up on prayer." While I do not think that reciting the prayer is necessarily dangerous, one should encourage students not to be excessive in their prayer practices.

The prayer itself goes like this : "Lord Jesus Christ" (while breathing in), "have mercy on me, a sinner" (while breathing out). The prayer is repeated in order to still one's thoughts and focus only upon the prayer and its meaning. The prayer is based upon the words of the tax collector in the "Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector" who prayers, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Remind your youth that there is nothing magical about this prayer, but that the consequences of doing this prayer are real. If one learns to pray this with conviction, one will live one's life out of the conviction that God's mercy is real.

Have the youth practice this prayer for as long as they seem comfortable. I recommend that when you are teaching it to the group that you do it only for a couple of minutes. If the group responds well to the prayer, you can incorporate it into devotionals.

PRAYER POSITIONS

Mennonites tend to pray sitting with their hands folded in their laps. Sometimes, a meals we form prayer circles by holding hands around the table. Introduce the idea that what you do with your body while praying is also a form of communication by having them discuss the concept of body language. Have them read your body language by sitting in various positions or using gestures.

Sitting with legs and arms crossed suggests you are not receptive to listening
Tapping your foot suggests that you are impatient
Shaking your head while someone speaks suggests you disagree

Have students identify a few more gestures.

Remind students that the meaning of gestures are often culturally determined. For example, thumbs up might be a positive gesture in North America but in Iraq it is a rude gesture.

Have students identify what it means if one assumes the following prayer postures:

prostrate, laying flat on the floor, face down, with hands stretched out - penitence, humility, petition (Matthew 26:39)?
standing, hands raised and spread, palms up, looking upward - joy, thanks?
sitting, head bowed, eyes closed, hands folded - reverence?
kneeling, head bowed, hands folded - reverence?
kneeling, head to the ground, hands face down on ground next to head - penitence?

If your group is comfortable with their bodies, have them explore different postures.

Besides these postures, there are a number of ways of using the body to assist in meditative prayers. Some Christians have appropriated yogic techniques in their prayer in order to calm the body and distractions while praying. For example, some will sit in lotus position. Others have adapted the practice of praying while walking from the Buddhist meditative walking.

When I was an undergraduate student of Religious Studies (in the years prior to my membership in the Mennonite Church), I participated in a workshop of Zen meditation. I have taken away a couple of practices from that discipline. Zen encourages the fulfillment of the Buddhist practice of mindfulness by making everyday activities like brushing one's teeth and driving a form of meditation. One does not seek to become oblivious to what one is doing, but rather, one seeks to be fully attentive and conscious to one's actions. Rather than anticipating what you will do later in the day or thinking about something that has just happened, one seeks to be fully in the moment. I have found that, as a Christian, when I practice this sort of mindfulness, I am more conscious of God's presence and find that I meet Christ in those with whom I interact.

RECITING SCRIPTURE

Children are not encouraged to memorize scripture the way that they once were. I learned very few passages by heart as a child and feel that my spiritual life is impoverished as a result. The goal of the following activity is to help students recognize that memorizing scripture is not just an act of piety and that being able to recite scripture is not just proof of the biblical foundation of one's faith, but that knowing scripture by heart is a way of storing up our faith for times of trouble or times when we might forget to acknowledge God in our lives. The desert fathers called the recitation of memorized passages "prayer of the heart."

Have students share the passages that they know by heart. Ask them when they recite these passage.

Show them how Jesus used a memorized psalm, Psalm 22, when he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:46). People who do not recognize that Jesus is reciting a psalm tend to think Jesus is despairing, but if one reads the entire psalm and understands that it would be difficult to say it in its entirety if one were hanging on a cross, one realizes that Jesus understood that his death was not without purpose.

Show the clip "The Only Way" from X2 X-Men United, a film that draws heavily from scripture for its imagery and concept of friendship. In this clip, a character called Nightcrawler recites the 23 Psalm.

I have a fear of taking off in an airplane and find that reciting the Lord's Prayer helps me a great deal. I pray each line with intent, that is making sure that I mean and understand each line of what I am praying as I recite it. This give me comfort, not because it distracts me, but because replaces the fear of death with the hope of the resurrection. I know that if something goes wrong, I will die with the Lord's Prayer on my lips.

Share your own stories with youth.

Have the youth find and memorize one verse to recite in times of grief or distress.

There are many other prayer practices that one could explore. If your denomination is comfortable or approving of the use of prayer beads, you might introduce them to your youth and even have them make their own small set.

Many Mennonite Congregations have drawn from the rich prayer traditions and practices from the Taize community in France. I have provided a link to the appropriate pages on their web sites.