Prayer, In Practice: A workbook to help you pray more and better. Today.

by J.L. Gerhardt

In theory, prayer sounds great. It moves mountains and opens doors and changes the world.

In practice? Well, a lot of us have never stuck with it long enough to find out. We forget to pray. We wonder if we're doing it right. We get distracted. We're not sure how to break the 4-minute mark (what else is there to say?). Mostly, we just say thank you, ask for stuff, and hope for the best.

There's a better way.

This book (workbook, really) is built on a novel idea--that the best way to learn to pray is to pray. In practicing prayer, we discover its power to connect us to God and His people, to transform our hearts and minds, and to, well, change the world.

In these pages, J.L. Gerhardt walks you through some straightforward ways to make prayer a habit, leading you in new (and sometimes very old) ways of praying. Her hope is to light a fire in you for prayer AND provide the skills you need to keep the fire burning.

Jennifer Gerhardt writes, creates Bible studies, and leads workshops about prayer with the single goal of leading people into a closer, more on-purpose relationship with God. She’s spent the last ten years intentionally exploring and experimenting with prayer.

Jennifer works alongside her husband Justin Gerhardt with Round Rock Church of Christ (just outside Austin, TX) and homeschools their daughters London (7) and Eve (6). She likes to explore outside, take pictures, read books and eat gluten-free pizza.

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CHAPTERS:
1: Just Do It
Because if you want to pray more you’re gonna have to pray more

2: Jumping Hurdles
How to get past what's keeping you away

3: How to Pray In 60 Seconds or Less
A lesson on prayer from a bonafide expert

4: Thanks. A lot.
New ways to be very, very grateful

5: How Awesome
Learning to praise

6: Over Coffee
Getting closer to God

7: For Me?
7 Requests you can't not make

8: We, The People
On praying for others

9: Not Done Yet
Time to make a plan

106 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 13, 2015

Reviews

[KJ Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!!! This is an incredible book for someone new or old to praying. I was able to find so many ideas to enhance my prayer life- plus it’s a workbook.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the kind of book I typically like to read - way to evangelical-y for me, way to "what I'd expect to find at Family Christian," if you catch my meaning. I really do like to spend my time in history and in commentaries and in learning intellectually, more than in a self-help kind of way.

But I REALLY enjoyed this book. The prayer prompts and reflection questions in each chapter were really engaging, and had me everyday for the past week sitting down and really engaging in prayer for 15-20 minutes at a time, which is a remarkably long time for me. I know that I'm supposed to pray as part of my profession, and I try, but I suck at it, and I know that.

I'm still on the look out for deeper and truer thoughts about the why's of prayer and philosophical and church historical information about prayer. And this book is definitely not that. But it is a perfectly reasonable and balanced way to approach a regular and robust habit of prayer in our daily lives.

[Kacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Update: I read this more thoroughly along with a group. The concept of this book is solid: becoming better at prayer takes practice. The ideas of how to put it into practice were mostly good. There were just several examples/anecdotes/thoughts that didn't ring true or made us uncomfortable with this as a Bible study. For example, Chapter 7 has the words "prayer is where we unfold the solar panels and suck all we can from our only, best Source." Chapter 6 doesn't have any scripture in it.

Original: I read through this book quickly to see if I would want to recommend this for a Bible study group. I definitely will be going through this again more slowly, so I can apply the Biblical principles presented.