If you missed the first night of Thrive, here are some of the key notes from Ann's talk (below). Also, if you missed some of Erin's homiletics notes, you can download those here. If you want to print more homiletics worksheets, you can find those here.
Prayer is “answering speech”, responding to God’s Word to us. The goal of praying the psalms is to make them our own prayers, using God’s language to respond to Him.
- verbatim – praying the psalm as written, reading aloud, reflecting as you go (you need to be familiar with what the psalm beforehand)
- paraphrase – when words don’t fit your life exactly, but suggest something very similar read as written, prayerfully considering how it applies to your own situation put into your own words, using words that seem appropriate to you
- praying over – similar to paraphrasing, summarize sections of psalm, applying to your own life as you go; allow HS to prompt, move you in related, but new directions
- responsive – read/pray the psalm, respond to matters raised as HS guides; establish a dialogue with God as He speaks from His Word
- guided --‐ let the verses of the psalm suggest a topic and pray for as many specific applications of that topic as the Lord brings to mind
- altogether--‐ using a variety of the above approaches, back and forth, letting the content of the psalm direct you We have the perfect Teacher in the language of prayer; the main obstacle is our own lack of desire
We learn to speak God’s language in prayers as a toddler learns language of his parent, must be practiced, builds relationship over time, shapes us. Some of these primary “vertical habits” of prayer are:
“I love you”
“I’m sorry”
“Thank you”
“Help!”
“Why?”
“I’m listening”
“What can I do?”
“Bless you”
