Jesus taught his followers the importance of prayer. He is fully God, and yet somehow knew a need for dependency on his Father in heaven – for relationship, for gratitude, and to ask his provision for all that he needed.
He also taught us how to pray. In Matthew 6:9-13 he sets out a pattern for our praying, and it would serve us well to learn from his example the vital importance of continuing, effective prayer as the backbone of our mission to see his church built.
It starts like this: Our Father in heaven
Sometimes my children struggle to get their words out. As they grow and learn their speech can’t always keep up with their thoughts – but that doesn’t worry them. They know that even if the words don’t come out in the right order, or they forget where they were going halfway through a sentence, they are speaking to a father who loves them. Someone who cares about their concerns, who listens patiently (well, most of the time) and who loves to help them.
I’m an imperfect dad – but here’s an incredible place to begin your prayers: Jesus’ Father is now our Father. You have the ear, the attention and the love of a dad who loves perfectly, listens attentively, and delights to hear your voice.
We’ve been given a big mission, and great needs to go along with it. We’d love to see giving and finances grow to allow us to release more people for ministry, and more resources to serve the church. We need the right people to serve and lead in areas like our children’s ministry, tech team and trustees. We’re looking for a whole church filled with the Spirit and courage to tell this whole borough how Jesus is alive and has changed our lives. Huge calling, great responsibility, massive challenges – where do we begin?
We begin with, ‘our Father in heaven‘. Over the coming weeks we’ll be running a series of short posts going through the Lord’s prayer, and learning to pray the way Jesus taught us to, into our own part of the mission in Great Yarmouth and beyond.
