Session 1 Small Group Questions

Before each session, the facilitators and I meet to review the material and generate questions.  There are always far more questions than time.  So here is the full list of questions for Prayer: Oriented Toward God.

1. What feelings does the word “prayer” well up within you?

2. When is a time you felt as though a prayer was answered?  When is a time you felt as though a prayer was not answered?

3. What have you heard the church say about prayer?

4. How does the promise in Romans 8:26-27 make you feel about prayer?

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

5. What parts of the Lord’s Prayer speak to you?  What parts of the Lord’s Prayer spark questions for you?

6. What kind of experiences have you had where prayer seemed to make a difference in some way?

7. What kind of experiences have you had where prayers offered by someone else seemed to make a difference in your life some way?

8. What are barriers in your life to prayer?  Or, what makes it difficult to pray?

9. If you were going to designate a certain part of your house or a particular time of day to prayer, what would it be?

10. This coming Sunday, the unison prayer in the 7AM and 9AM worship service will be:

“Father of Lights, search us and know us.  Disturb us and rouse us from our sleep.  Awaken us by the dawn of your presence.  Enlighten our courage; enliven our compassion; illuminate our creativity so that by our works the world would see flashes of you.  We pray this in Christ’s name, he who is the light of the world.  Amen.”

What (if any) parts of this prayer might be something you say this week?  In other words how might this prayer connect with your life and shape your prayers?

11. Brian McLaren talked about four moves in the Lord’s Prayer, how might one (or more) of these moves be life-giving for you?

• Wake Up: “Our Father in Heaven…”
• Tune Up: “Your Kingdom Come…”
• Ask: “Give Us this Day…”
• Re-enter: “Lead Us Not into Temptation…”

12. What would it look like for prayer to be life-changing for you?  What might change in your daily rhythms of life?

13. What might you experiment with this week in regards to prayer?