Reviving Fixed-Hour prayer?

The biblical text is clear, it teaches us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17). Many think that this is not achievable outside of taking monastic vows and living a cloistered lifestyle. As for me, I believe that there is tremendous value in connecting regularly with the Heart of God, connecting several times a day – a rhythm of regularly stopping everything that you are doing and just concentrating on God’s heart.

Praying at fixed times during the day was by-and-large rejected by the Protestant Reformation. A the time, anything that smelled of Rome was rejected, with it the monastic movement and its lifestyle of the Divine Office – fixed-hour prayer. In my opinion the baby was thrown out with the dirty bath-water.

However, praying at fixed times during the day was not essentially a Roman Catholic tradition, although the monastic tradition had championed it and modeled it for centuries. Fixed-hour prayer was a Jewish tradition long before it ever became a Christian one.

Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice – Psalm 55:17

In the early church the tradition of praying at fixed hours throughout the day was continued to the point where we read in Acts Chapter 3 that Peter and John performed a miracle on a lame man when they were on their way to the temple to prayer “at the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1).

I have begun an experiment with this notion of praying at fixed times during the day. I am exploring whether this lifestyle can be pursued outside of the monastic tradition – more specifically, whether this is doable whilst holding down a job, having a family, studying for a degree and also Pastoring a church.  If praying without ceasing is in the book it is something that is not only doable but necessary. This puts prayer at the centre of life. Prayer now becomes something that cannot be appended onto a busy schedule but rather something that must take the centre and have everything else revolve around it.

For this to become sustainable in the long term I need to add fuel to my prayer. For this I am taking a leaf out of the monastic tradition and using the bible as a prayer book to mull over the sacred text, musing, meditating and savouring every word and then praying this all back to God.

If you wish to look into this further, my message included below of 30th August 2009, “3 Things to Stoke the Fire of Revival” touches on this issue as well as the power of joy and the power of thankfulness.

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