By Cameron Silsbee
Optional Kids Practice
Invite kids in your group to be with the adults for a few minutes. Once they seem ready to engage, ask them the following prompt.
- What do you think Jesus would do if he were here right now and wanted to show you how much he loves you?
One person can lead the kids to close their eyes. Ask them to imagine Jesus giving them a really big hug. After about 20 or 30 seconds, say a quick prayer over the kids, asking Jesus to help them understand how much God loves them.
Begin with prayer
Gather together as a Community in a comfortable setting. Take a moment in silence, in the presence of Jesus and each other. Have one person read 1 John 4v9-10 over the group and then pray to ask the Holy Spirit to lead and guide your time together.
Debrief the most recent teaching
- What did you take away from the teaching, and what has God been doing in your life this past week because of it?
- What did you like about practicing communal prayer? What was challenging about it?
Read this overview
If we could boil down the most foundational aspect of Christianity into one idea, it would be this – God loves us. While there are so many different ideas and concepts about God and reality that are vital for followers of Jesus, without this core idea of God’s love, we lose the unifying motif that ties our entire faith together.
However, God’s love is not just an idea or theological concept. It’s a reality God invites us to experience. It can be something that sweeps us up off our feet as an infinite God delights in us and follows us with his persistent love. It can also be like dull background noise, barely drawing our attention as we scamper around our busy lives. God’s love can also cause us so much heartache and confusion as we grasp at experiences of his love and come up empty-handed time and time again. Unlike a static theological concept, our experience of God’s love tends to ebb and flow in perceptiveness and intensity.
Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish priest and theologian from the 16th century, developed a robust, intricate rhythm for a life of prayer. This influential way of prayer instructed those seeking to deepen their prayer lives to begin each time in prayer with the idea that “God our Lord beholds me.” His point was to focus our attention on the reality that God is constantly looking at us with a loving gaze. And as we choose to turn our attention toward his gaze, we won’t be able to help but be caught up in his love.
Turning our attention to God in this way, what we could call “praying God’s love” is a prayer practice that has a large amount of flexibility in what it looks like to do it. The essence of this Practice is doing something that makes it easier to turn your attention to God’s love. This could be a time of imaginative prayer, listening prayer, a prayer walk in nature, listening to certain music or meditating on a piece of art, or recalling a moment of beauty and awe in your life. By doing this, we make it a habit of acknowledging God’s love for us, whatever our season or experience of him.
Discuss the following prompts
- Describe a time you felt God’s love in a powerful way. Share details like what was happening, what emotions you felt, and any difference it made in your life. If it’s hard to remember a time like this, why do you think that is?
- Which do you find easier to believe and trust: God’s love for you or other people’s love for you? Why do you think that is?
- What are things you do that make it easier for you to experience God’s love? (e.g., listening to worship music, sipping a warm drink on a cold and cozy morning, a walk in nature, reading a particular Scripture or book, etc.)
Practicing right now:
If your Community has the time, take a few minutes to practice one way of praying God’s love through imaginative prayer.
Do your best to have a quiet environment with as few distractions as possible. Have one person invite God’s Spirit to speak and then lead the group by reading the following imaginative prayer prompts.
(To the reader: pause for about 30 seconds between each prompt)
- Imagine yourself sitting someplace comfortable and peaceful. Take a moment to imagine different details of the space, and how it feels to sit in it.
- Picture Jesus sitting with you in the space. Notice that his expression is full of love and delight for you.
- As you sit there, you sense Jesus looking at all the things you’ve done well today, the things you’re proud of, the things you are happy about. You see him smiling with that same, loving gaze.
- As you continue to sit there, you sense that Jesus is looking at all the things and thoughts from today that you regret or feel ashamed of, big and small. He sees all the things you find unimpressive or embarrassing about yourself. As he sees all this, you notice that his face is still full of love and delight for you.
- Spend a moment thanking Jesus for meeting with you.
If the Community has time, share with each anything noteworthy from that time.
Practicing this week:
This week, you’ll be practicing praying God’s love. Over the coming week, incorporate this into your prayer rhythm three times, starting your time of prayer by praying God’s love. This can take anywhere between three and ten minutes. Don’t rush it, but also allow it to be incorporated naturally into your already established prayer rhythms.
Take a moment to share with your group what thing(s) you’ll do to practice praying God’s love. A non-exhaustive list includes:
- Imaginative prayer
- Listening prayer
- Meditating on a particular Scripture
- Listening to a worship song
- Meditating on a poem or a piece of art
- Recalling a time when God’s love surprised you or overwhelmed you
- Walking in nature
Again, this can include a lot of different activities – things that make it easier to notice his loving gaze. You are also free to use the imaginative prayer exercise above if that feels like a good starting place.
If you currently don’t have established prayer rhythms, plan out the days and times you could do this practice over the coming week three times.
Be prepared to share with your Community next week what the experience was like.
Close in prayer
End by having someone read this prayer from Ephesians 3v14-21:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.