What is Prayer? Why Pray?

What is prayer?

Why pray?

Reflecting on those two questions I stumbled across something this week that helped me towards finding an answer to something that for me has about it a sense of mystery and wonder.

On Monday evening I watched Sir Colin Davis conducting the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Sibelius’s second symphony. at the Proms. During the interval, Sir Colin Davis spoke of the inspiration of playing with young players brought together specially for a summer season from all over Europe.

He reflected on that ‘something special’ that happens when conductor and orchestra come together and produce wonderful music.

Orchestral playing at its best involves ‘letting loose the energy contained in the dots on the page’.

As conductor and orchestra came together that evening an energy was released that all who were there and all who were listening or watching on TV could not help but notice.

Isn’t that the kind of thing that could be said of a community of people praying?

Thinking not so much of a score, as of the Bible, prayer involves letting loose the energy contained in the words on the page.

It was fascinating to hear Sir Colin Davis speak of the experience of conducting an orchestra.

Each knows their part, he suggested. And the professionalism of this young orchestra was plain to see, made up as it is of some of the finest young musicians in Europe.

But at the same time, no individual must stand out from the others. All must listen to each other and be aware of everyone else and there must be constant communication between players and the conductor.

As that happens something is going on between the players and between the players and the conductor that lets loose the energy that is contained in the dots on the page.

Let’s use that as a picture of a church community sharing in prayer.

Something very similar is going on.

It is important that each of that community ‘knows their part’. It is for each of us invidually to take seriously the call to Christian commitment and to live out our Christian life.

But no individual must stand out from all the rest as if they are more important than any of the others. Every single person in a church family is important and each one has their part to play. That’s a theme Paul constantly returns to, thinking of the parts of the body.

It is important that we all listen to each other and that we all are in constant communication with God. That’s what’s going on as we share together in prayer.

Prayer is not simply something that each of us does in isolation. Prayer is something we do as part of the church family, part of the community of the church. Not only is it something we do as part of the church family we belong to, but there is a very real sense that we do it as part of the whole church family.

Terry Waite is returning to the Cheltenham Literature Festival – he often speaks of that very real sense of being part of a praying community he had when he was held hostage, in isolation, and yet not isolated from the community of people praying for him and with him.

Prayer is that process of being in communication constantly with God … but not in isolation from others. It is something we share with all who share the task of praying.

And that is the mystery of prayer.

Something is going on between the pray-ers and between the pray-ers and God that lets loose the energy that is contained in the words on the page.

That something is prayer.

Its purpose is to let loose the energy that is contained in the words on the page.

How does that work out in practice?
Take the prayer of St Paul in Ephesians 3:14-19.

That’s simply a set of words on the page.

We can each of us read those words – we can make a study of them. But these words are something more than mere words of interest. They are words that contain within them an energy. They are words of prayer. We can pray these words ourselves. We can sense those from Paul onwards who have gone before us in the faith praying these words with us. We can come together in prayer with others in a church family and pray these words together. As we do that we find they nudge us towards the kind of God we believe in. The words contain within them promises that can make a difference in our lives. It is as if we are in communication with God himself through these ancient words.

Something is happening.

It is a mystery.

To be part of a community of people praying and praying with God is to let loose the energy contained in these words.

There is within these words an energy for our families. Verses 14-15

For this reason I fall on my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth receives its true name.

As a family to be part of a praying community is to discover a very real strength and energy from beyond ourselves that can make a difference in our family life. That’s what’s important to us as a church family to offer support to families mainly by being the kind of place where families can find support for each other. And also to find that for family life there is a power from beyond ourselves that we can draw on to enrich and strengthen that family life.

There is an energy for each one of us. Verses 16-17a.

The prayer goes on, I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith.

Each of us needs a strength from beyond ourselves to enable and to empower and to energise us. How much we need deep within our inner selves a core strength – that’s released within us as we are part of a praying community.

Sometimes it seems elusive. This is where the other part of the communication process comes in. It’s not simply down to us., The prayer is that Christ makes his hjome in our hearts through faith. What a wonderful thought.


What is released in this praying community of Christian people is the energy of love. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love

The love that provides support to one another, the love that enables you to realize individually you are not alone, the love that enables you to realize as a family you don’t face this on your own, the love that binds people together is the love that is released in this praying community.

It is a love that goes deep down to the roots, a love that goes right to the foundations. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love. Yes, may you come to know his love — although it can never be fully known — and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

Pray that prayer … and something happens!

Prayer is that something that lets loose the energy contained in the words on the page.

– An energy for our families – verses 14-15
– An energy for each of us – verses 16-17a
– An energy of love – verses 17b – 19