"When we learn to enjoy and trust the presence of God, we will naturally turn to that presence in prayer. When the church is no longer teaching the people how to pray, we could almost say it will have lost its reason for existence. Prayer is the ultimate empowerment of the people of God, and that may be why we clerics prefer laws and guilt, though they often disempower us and make us live in insufficiency and doubt. Prayer, however, gives us a sense of abundance and connectedness. An overemphasis on social prayer (i.e. attendance at services where the clergy happen to be in charge) has left many of our people passive, without a personal prayer life and comfortable with “handed-down religion” instead of first-hand experience. We don’t do God any favors by keeping the people passive and unaware."
|
No comments:
Post a Comment