Prayer is a personal priority for many of us and we could not go on without it. Here are a number of ways that Chapelwood makes prayer a priority:

o        We host two on-site prayer rooms where people pray.

o        We provide an online prayer Web site Where thousands of prayer requests have been submitted and prayed for by intercessors.

o        Prayer groups regularly pray for the church, community and world.

o        Dozens of folks knit prayer shawls that are given to persons in crisis.

o        Each November, we highlight prayer and God’s invitation that we be people of prayer. 

This year, the Stewardship of Prayer emphasis will provide opportunities for practical, hands-on praying. We’re providing ways for you to experience prayer and to explore some areas of prayer you may not have explored previously. In all three Sanctuary services (8:25, 9:45, 11:10 a.m.) on November 2, 9 and 16, we will introduce a different form of prayer during the pastoral prayer time. Each Sunday, the prayer will be experiential and participatory . . . that is, there won’t be someone praying for us as much as leading all of us into an experience of prayer. Additionally, on those same three Sundays, you will have the opportunity to experience different forms of prayer:

o        November 2, from 9:30 – 10:00 a.m., 10:45 – 11:15 a.m. and 12:15 – 12:45 p.m., in the Fellowship Hall, you may pray for others at various prayer stations. Each station will focus on intercessory prayer for a different concern – families, schools and students, the sick, church leaders, community concerns, global concerns and so on. Leaders will give guidance at each station.

o        November 9, from 9:30 - 10:00 a.m., 10:45 - 11:15 a.m. and 12:15 - 12:45 p.m., in the Chapel, you may come to experience listening prayer of a more contemplative form known as centering prayer. Leaders will give a brief introduction to the prayer.

o        November 16, in the Fellowship Hall, you may experience a more physical form of prayer by walking and praying with a labyrinth. The labyrinth will be open from 9:30 a.m.  - 12:45 p.m., with persons available to answer questions from 9:30 – 10:00 a.m., 10:45 – 11:15 a.m. and 12:15 – 12:45 p.m. Labyrinths were used in European cathedrals of the Middle Ages when persons could no longer make pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Churches encouraged persons to walk and pray on the labyrinth as a symbol of the spiritual journey and the pilgrimage of faith we are invited to make with God.

We hope you will take advantage of these three Sundays to stretch your prayer life. We are all invited to pray, to know God more deeply through prayer.