Sunday Worship Resources

• Suggested resources to consider for Sunday, March 26
• Communion Liturgy used in 2023 Weekend of Prayer

Websites

• See All the People - 40 different ways to pray umcdiscipleship.org
   
• Renovare: https://renovare.org/?gclid=CjwKCAiA85efBhBbEiwAD7oLQGvPIqTA-54hQJECq7dkbfrl68BKUoglSkMDw7dv2c2XBGYMUY8sPxoCLSAQAvD_BwE
  Provides practical resources for cultivating a life that makes us more like Jesus. Journey online and in-person with others hungry for a deeper life with God. 
   
• Prayer Practices for Disciples: Creating a Life with God (www.store.umcdiscipleship.org)
   
• Praying with Kids – 101 Ways to Start a Conversation with God (https://www.parentingforfaith.brf.org.uk/post/101-ways-to-start-a-conversation-with-god/) - It can be hard to know how to teach our kids to pray - how to encourage them to just go for it, and not worry about how they look or sound. Why not print it off or save it to your phone, and use it at bedtime, mealtimes, or anytime you're praying together, to encourage a natural chat and catch between your child and God?

APPS (for your smart device)

Praying Scripture: 

• Ceaseless Prayer is an app that helps you experience the joy of prayer by showing you a Scripture and three people from your contacts  to pray for each day.
   
• Daily Office is an app that invites you to join with Christians around the world in praying with the Church, at any time or in any place you may find yourself. It makes it easy to pray daily morning, midday, evening, and compline (bedtime) prayer without flipping pages, searching for scripture readings or calendars, or interpreting rubrics. The prayers are presented from The Book of Common Prayer (2019)

Types of Prayer practices: 

• Centering Prayer: Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself.  The Centering Prayer app  will support your daily prayer practice commitment. Beautiful and peaceful, the app includes an adjustable timer, as well as opening and closing prayer options that you may read before and after your silent prayer time. An assortment of sounds and backgrounds allow you to choose the type of environment you want to create for your prayer time. Brief instructions for learning Centering Prayer are also included.
   
• Lectio365: This app is a daily devotional that helps you pray scripture using lectio divina prayer practice and engage with Scripture to inspire prayer and shape your life.
   
• Lectio for Families: Lectio for Families is a free app for families to do together. It features daily Bible readings, a weekly memory verse, engaging questions to pause and talk about, and prompts for reflection and prayer.

Daily Prayers on the Go:

• Every Moment Holy: an app that presents new liturgies for the ordinary events of daily life. These prayers are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with the sacred purpose even when, especially when, we are too busy or too caught up in our busyness to notice.
   
• Everyday Sanctuary: This app helps create a satisfying spiritual practice in 5 minutes or less, everywhere you are. Your Spiritual Life Matters and in five minutes you can: enjoy a sacred experience in your everyday surroundings. It includes daily prayers for presence, scripture, breath prayer, gratitudes, and today’s prayers. 
   
• Glorify: Glorify is your #1 Christian Daily Worship App. Join a community of people who worship God through daily Christian Meditation, Bible Stories, and Prayer.

Prayer Habit Builder/Organizers: 

• Echo: is an app that helps you set prayer reminders across your day and enables you to enter your prayer list and things that you want to continuously cover in prayer.  It reminds you to pray throughout your day, and lets you share prayer requests with others. 
   
• Prayermate: app helps you pray consistently for the people and causes you care about. Develop a discipline of prayer as PrayerMate helps you organze your prayer life, know what to pray for, and actually pray.
   
• Innerroom:  an app for those who like to organize their prayer lives. It helps you organize your prayer lists, topics, and be intentional about your prayer life. 

Books

• “Becoming a Prayer Warrior”, Elizabeth Alves
• “Intercessory Prayer”, Carlton Sheets
• “Prevailing Prayer to Peace”, Kenneth Hagin

VIDEO

• PrayerLab
• 2023 Convocation Clips  COMING SOON

Youth Resources

• Stations of the Cross
• Station Ideas (Word Document)

Children's Resources

Tsahai Gomwalk Jacobsen, Bedtime Prayers for Children

This prayer book is intended to build up your child's prayer life in a fun and relatable way. The rhyming and conversational tone of each prayer, accompanied by a colorful and fitting image, is intended to make prayer time an enjoyable experience for children. The book's intention is also to encourage children to approach and talk to God about anything and everything going on in their lives, since God is always ready to listen and loves to hear from them, regardless of the topic or thought. The book is aimed mainly at children aged 0-6 years, but it can be used by older children too, who can easily relate to the varying themes of the individual prayers.

Jennifer Grant, Sing, Wrestle, Spin

Prayer does not have to involve silence, sitting still, and solemnity. It can be active and engaging, especially essential for kids, who often enjoy movement and creativity. In an easy-to-use format with illustrations, the author connects scripture and biblical characters to dynamic prayer practices such as wrestling, singing, breathing, and dancing. Pray while using sign language, tracing a labyrinth, applying Band-Aids, planting a seed, eating something delicious, or riding a bike--these fun ideas are just some of the ways wiggly, tactile, and nonverbal kids will learn to reach out in love, gratitude, and need to God.

Emmanuelle Remond-Dalyac, Nathalie Dieterie, Good Night: A Toddler’ Bedtime Prayer

Introduce your child to the practice of ending the day with a prayer with this calming bedtime book. Children give thanks for family, friends, and nature before saying good night. A parent page in the back helps moms and dads use this book to cultivate a prayer practice that lasts a lifetime

August Gold, Does God Hear My Prayer?

Does God Hear My Prayer? playfully guides children down their own paths of spiritual discovery by exploring the many ways that children can communicate with God. Using simple, everyday examples that children can relate to, this colorful book introduces preschoolers as well as young readers (ages 3-6) to prayer and how prayer can help them express their own fears, wants, sadness, surprise, and joy. Multicultural, nondenominational and nonsectarian, this beautiful book helps parents and children of all faiths and backgrounds embark, together, on an imaginative journey in search of ways we can use our voices to develop a direct and personal understanding with God.

Kat Kalindi, The Weekly Prayer Project for Kids

The Weekly Prayer Project for Kids helps children 8 to 12 discover the power of all types of prayer and the impact it has in their lives. This year-long guided prayer journal encourages young readers to talk to God about their blessings, hopes, fears, dreams, and more. 

Fun journaling prompts and beautiful photos and illustrations will keep kids engaged, while Bible verses and mindful reflections will deepen their faith as they develop their own personal relationship with God. And the weekly format is perfect for busy schedules while still building a regular habit. 

Each week includes: 

• A biblical theme to focus on 
• Scripture--a short but impactful Bible verse to help readers reflect and think deeply
• Journaling prompts to help young readers pray, reflect, and connect with God

Frolic Prayer Cards

Delight your families with a complete deck of prayer cards they can use at home. Packed with wonderful prayers they can say for and with their children. Cards are packaged in packs of 56.

Adam Hamilton, The Most Important Prayer of All: Stella Learns the Lord’s Prayer

In The Most Important Prayer of All, a grandfather and granddaughter talk about the Lord’s Prayer as he teaches it to her one night and she asks questions about what it means. This book, written by Adam Hamilton based on conversations with his own granddaughter, helps children ages 3-12 learn the Lord’s Prayer and understand its meaning.

Podcasts

• The Next Right Thing with Emily P. Freeman: In The Next Right Thing Podcast, Emily P. Freeman focuses on helping listeners discern the next right thing so our lives can be lived with that kind of focus and faithfulness.
   
• Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast with Pete Scazzero: Emotionally Healthy Leader seeks to develop deeper disciples by helping leaders and organizations operate from an emotionally and spiritually mature place.
   
• Things Above with James Bryan Smith: Things Above is about mind discipleship, recognizing that where we direct our thoughts and our thinking matters immensely. This is built on Colossians 3:2 which calls us to seek the things above, good, beautiful, and true thoughts and ideas rooted in the kingdom of God.
   
• Renovare with Nathan Foster: Renovare focuses on our interactive life with God and our spiritual formation/transformation in Christ.
   
• Unhurried Living by Alan Fadling: Unhurried Living focuses on developing healthy rhythms of rest and work, especially related to resting in God and working with God. From this deep place, we cultivate an unhurried, nonaxious heart enabling us to “rest deeper and lead better.”