Week of Guided Prayer

What is a Week of Guided Prayer?

•             It’s a time of spiritual refreshment with God and prayer, within the context of an ordinary working week.

•             Individuals are invited to set apart time for personal prayer each day – half an hour as a suggestion.... from Monday to Friday.

•             They may also choose to set aside up to half an hour, Monday to Friday, to meet with a prayer guide, who hopes to listen and encourage each one on their individual prayer journey. 

•             A team of trained and safely recruited prayer guides drawn from outside of your location is invited to come to spend a week with you, to meet with individuals each day.

•             The aims: to grow in prayer; to see where God is working in each life.

•             Participants will be encouraged to explore a variety of ways of praying, especially using Scripture.

The Opportunity

Would your deanery, or Churches Together, or similar grouping, like to invite a team of prayer guides to your location?  (How many prayer guides depends on how many participants and vice versa; a prayer guide might meet up to four people each day)

•             It gives you the opportunity to offer a taster of spiritual accompaniment to people who have not tried this before. 

•             It gives people a place to talk to people from outside of their own community about their life and life with God.

•             And our prayer guides, and you, the supporting churches, would be growing in the skills of guiding and developing something to take further in the months and years to come.  It can be life-changing!

The Practicalities

To make this work, because our prayer guides come from scattered locations, we are looking for an invitation from one church or from a group of churches. 

•             One or two of those local churches would host the daily one-to-one meetings for up to 16 church members, drawn from churches near you, responding to invitations from you. These would probably be afternoon and early evening times.  So local church leadership would be responsible for promoting the week and gathering names of participants. 

•             The host church(es) need to be able to offer separate and fairly soundproof meeting spaces for several participants to meet separately with their prayer guide – preferably on the same site.  And preferably to have a communal space for people to wait, chat and enjoy a cuppa before or after meeting the prayer guide.

•             The prayer guides and the team member organising the week would need food and accommodation for the week. 

•             There would be an opening meeting for all involved on the first Sunday and a closing meeting during the final weekend (maybe Saturday morning) – so a meeting place in a hall with seating, and opportunity for a cuppa. 

•             The team also involve trained supervisors for the prayer guides, either on zoom or face to face, usually in the morning each day.

If you are interested in hosting a week of guided prayer, or want to know more, email ministry@chester.anglican.org