Housegroups 

Lent: Deepening our Prayer Lives
Week 2: Rhythm: prayer as part of a rule of life
Sermon Date: March 8th
Reading: Psalm 55:16-23

 
Note for leaders: I’m proposing an exercise on Q10 that will need paper and pens, it will take around 15 minutes and it is at the heart of this study. So please do make sure you check the timings so that you have enough time for this.

Icebreaker

Q1 - Do you have any healthy routines you try to follow?
(E.g. going to the gym once a week or calling your parents once a year :) 


Q2 - What are the things you find difficult to do but you know are good for you? Please don’t get into spiritual disciplines yet!
 
Study

Please read Psalm 55 together

Q3 - What does the Psalm say about who God is?
(Hint: look at verses 16, 19, 22-23)

Q4 - What does the Psalm say about how God acts on behalf of those who call out to Him?
(Hint: look at verses 16, 18-19, 22-23)
 
The Psalm clearly talks about a God who intervenes in our life. A God who is ready to listen to us, to save, to rescue and is happy for us to “cast our cares” onto Him.

Q5 - Do you believe God still intervenes in our lives as He did in the past? How does He act in our lives and on our behalf?
 
Prayer rhythm

We are called to pray, to call out to God, the God who hears, the God who is good and intervenes when we ask Him to. Verse 17 says “Evening, morning and noon, I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.” This is the heart of what we are looking at today. The psalmist is talking about a rhythm of prayer. He or she prays three times a day in the morning, noon and evening. That was a normal rhythm of prayer in the Old Testament. We find that Daniel prayed three times a day “three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10)

Q6 - What do you think would be a healthy prayer rhythm for us today?
Q7 - Realistically, how would you like your prayer life to be in the next few weeks?
 
Developing a Rule of Life

Everyone lives by some kind of ‘rule’ – a set of practices or habits they return to each day, even if these have never been articulated as a ‘rule’. Indeed, without a rhythm and structure to daily life, it is hard to sustain a coherent sense of identity.

In recent years, there has been a rising interest in Christian writings in the concept of a ‘rule of life’ for every person who would adopt it. In a world where speed, hurry and busyness threaten to overwhelm many, the promise of a structure has made something of a comeback. This has in a sense been a popular recovery of the lost monastic tradition of living life by a given pattern adopted within a Christian community. Saint Benedict (487 – 547) has perhaps been the ‘patron saint’ of this recovery. He created a rule to enable initiates into his communities to discover the presence of God in daily life, and to find in the community as in a ‘school of love’. The recent writings of fr. Christopher Jamieson, the former Abbot of Worth Abbey, have brought the ancient practices of the Benedictine way to a wider audience. (Taken from Rev. Matt Prior)

Q8 - Do you have a “rule” or discipline you try to follow to develop your relationship with God?

Q9 - Do you feel like you follow other disciplines like exercise, food, spending time with friends or family, more strictly than your spiritual life?
 
Practicing a Rule of Life

There are a number of guidelines to assist us in creating a realistic rhythm for daily life.
1. Start simply – which one area can I focus on at first?
2. Build slowly – beware of false resolutions!
3. Prune regularly – less is more. What needs to go?
4. 'Go with the flow’ of our energy - when am I most attentive?
5. Consider the season of the year, and of your life
6. Be flexible – a rule is not an iron law but a means of grace.
7. Remember fun - the chapter on play is particularly insightful!
8. Include others – spiritual growth is a communal task.  (taken from Rev. Matt Prior)
 
Q10 - Spend at least 5 minutes in silence thinking about how you would like to organise your day so that you have space for your relationship with God. Ideally you can have some pens and paper to write some ideas down. Think about how your “rule of Life” or rhythm of prayer could be. After 5 or 10 minutes please feedback on how that exercise went and invite people to share what they’ve written down.
 
Prayer

The most difficult part of any discipline is to start and to maintain it. When our lives are very busy it is hard to find time for prayer or to decide what to drop to give God more space. Pray for one another and in the next few weeks when you meet you might want to ask how people are doing.

Click here to download "Developing a rule of Life" by Revd Matt Prior (Diocese of Guildford)


 


Nico Hilding Ohlsson, 27/02/2020