Blog tour review of Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today, by Scot McKnight, foreword by Phyllis Tickle. Released, May, 2006 by Paraclete Press.

Most Christians are not happy with their prayer life - they either don’t pray often enough or well enough. Page 1, Praying with the Church

Prayer. As Christians, this word can evoke strong feelings; the strongest of which is often ambivalence. Most of us never talk about how difficult it is to maintain any kind of prayer life, much less a vibrant one; especially those of us in ministry.

Some people have a gift of intercession/prayer and they likely find it baffling how a Christian could struggle with prayer. But in my experience, intercessors are not in the majority in most Christian communities, and the struggle with prayer remains a dirty little secret. The sermons from the pulpit rarely offer much more than platitudes, which typically, albeit inadvertently, serve to bring condemnation.

It is refreshing to find an out-of-the-box thinker like McKnight who is willing to approach the spiritual discipline of prayer from a unique angle (at least in most “low church” circles, which is the perspective from which I write today).

My experience and thoughts

I have been studying Eastern Orthodoxy for over a year and had been “toying around” with the practice of liturgical prayer so I read this book with some small bit of exposure and already having set aside some of my bias and preconceived notions. But I was able to glean great insight from McKnight’s book, since he is writing as a Protestant to a mostly Protestant audience, and I greatly appreciate his patience in laying out a defense for liturgical prayer.

McKnight makes a few important points at several times throughout the book. First, he addresses what is likely the most common and passionate argument against liturgical prayer - that it will become vain repetitions and meaningless to the believer. My first reaction to this statement, and McKnight’s response as well, is that any prayer can be meaningless, mindless, vain and repetitive. The source of that problem rests not in the practice of liturgical prayer but firmly in the heart of the Christian. Whether you are praying spontaneously or praying a fixed prayer at a fixed time, your heart must be in the right place and your attention on the right Person.

The second important point he makes is that liturgical prayer is not meant to replace individual spontaneous prayer, it is meant to compliment it. And in fact, I would say from personal experience that it will enhance it. I personally strive to pray fixed prayers 2-3 times daily at fixed times and I have found that it has indeed enriched my times of individual spontaneous prayer.

I would also like to address a problem with prayer that is probably more unique to my tradition - that of the charismatic church. Many within charismatic Christianity have come to expect and rely heavily on “hearing from God” while in prayer, or having some kind of “experience”. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. God desires 2-way communication and emotional responses are certainly not forbidden nor do they have to be rare. But what I have personally found, is that when that becomes an expectation, it can set the individual up for disappointment. It also puts too much of an individualistic spin on the discipline of prayer (I pray what I feel led to pray, when I feel led to pray it, in the manner in which I want to pray). There have been seasons in my life when I have had wonderful experiences with God, when his voice has been loud and my responses have been impassioned. But most times, God’s voice is a whisper (or can’t be heard at all) and I haven’t “felt” anything. In those times, I have struggled greatly with prayer and have sometimes given up on it completely because my prayer life was entirely too “outcome based”. In my conversations with others like me who have also discovered the mystery of liturgical prayer, they have said that it is in those “dark nights of the soul” that liturgical prayer kept them connected to God.

Praying with the Church

In this section, McKnight begins by laying a foundation of semantics - mostly establishing the phrases “praying in the Church” and “praying with the Church”. Praying in the Church is “whenever an individual prays exactly and only what is on his or her heart.” This is what most of us non liturgical Christians do exclusively.

He continues to add bricks to foundation; bricks of imagery and personal experience as well as further explanations of what it means to pray with the Church, specifically by praying aloud the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms and prayers from prayer books.

Part One: Jesus and Daily Rhythms of Prayer

This section delves into some education about the history and evolution of the discipline of prayer. It is this that I think is the most important section for us to grasp firmly (especially for those most likely to be skeptical of liturgical prayer). Without getting overly academic, McKnight lays out the Scriptural and historical support for liturgical prayer. He discusses familiar components such as the Lord’s Prayer, the Shema (Hear o Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one…), the Psalms and the 10 Commandments. He examines the prayer life of the Jews in the time of Jesus and goes onto to discuss the early Church Tradition.

It is important to understand that liturgical prayer is not new, nor is it a fad and McKnight does an excellent job at making this point.

Part Two: The Church and Daily Rhythms of Prayer

This section gets into the nitty gritty of liturgical prayer. McKnight discusses the major Christian traditions of Prayer; Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and the Divine Hours (an ecumenical approach to fixed hour prayer). This is a very useful “handbook” in how the different prayer books are laid out and how to use them. McKnight also talks about the benefit of utilizing different prayer books for a length of time sufficient to fully experience the rhythm of the tradition.

Conclusion

In the conclusion, McKnight lays out the importance of creating a daily prayer habit - both in prayer with the Church and prayer in the Church; creating sacred spaces, times and traditions in our life. He also emphasizes the importance of being realistic, both in our expectations and in practice. Chances are, a person working full time in corporate America is not going to be able to pray the Hours. McKnight recommends starting with whatever is closest to your tradition, to your experiences and adding new ones as you become familiar with each experience. I might even take it one step further and recommend adding something as simple as saying the Lord’s Prayer before bed every night.

For many, praying fixed prayers at fixed times is going to feel very odd. Do not use this feeling as an excuse to quit. Liturgical prayer is not about a feeling or an experience, it’s about choosing to unify yourself with the Body in prayer on a daily basis.