Last week we kicked off a new series of blog posts called discipleship 101 where we are looking at different Christian disciplines.  The point is to refine ourselves in these disciplines and see their importance in the every day life of a believer.  Today, I’m (Bobby) going to talk about the discipline of prayer and meditation.

To understand, prayer is simply our communication with God.  Meditation is our listening to God’s voice while we concentrate on scripture or something that has tuned our attention to God.

To be 100% honest with you, there was a time I could say that my prayer life stunk.  I’m still not where I should be, but I feel like in the last few years I have made some healthy changes in this discipline and if you would say that about your prayer life too, then I hope this will help.

One of the key reasons I believe we don’t put more effort and energy into prayer is because deep down, we have a feeling that they’ll never work.  They’ll never get to God, they’ll never be heard, and God is too busy to hear our prayer.  It’s simply not true.  We must make a resolve to pray long, pray hard, and pray through.  When it comes to prayer,  we must rise up into the atmosphere of expectation; an expectation that believes God is big enough to step in and answer our prayers in His way and His timing.  Prayers fail when we fail to pray.

Prayer

I found for myself, that if I sit down to pray at the end of my day or for long, consecutive times, my mind wanders.  So I naturally thought I was no good at prayer and I would never be one of those “praying kinds of people.”  I was just doing it wrong.  For me, I pray best in short, focused settings and when I can fire off shotgun kinds of prayers.  Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t ever sit and pray for long periods of time.  This happens, but just not as much as the shorter, condensed, focused prayers.  Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing.”  This simply means to be pray at a moments notice, always ready to talk with God.  So this is exactly what I do a lot of times.  While driving, in stores, while running, in worship, even in conversation with other people.  Give it a try and see if it doesn’t help your more focused prayer times.

Meditation

I love to meditate!  I love it when I get a chance to shut up and listen to how God speaks to me.  One thing that I’ve learned about meditation, especially when it comes to scripture, is that if I overload my mind, I won’t be able to meditate and hear as effectively.  So for me, I have drastically cut down how much scripture I read during my bible reading times so I can meditate on one verse or one central theme.  This helps me leave room for times when God shows me something in a book I’m reading or when He points something out in a song that grabs my attention.  In meditation, I simply ask of the Lord one question, “Lord what do you want to show me?”  Then I shut up and listen.  The best meditation times for me is when I can shut off the noise and distractions around me and just ask the Lord, “Lord what do you want to show me in this?”

Challenge

I want to challenge you to a few things this week in light of this:

1. If you have trouble with prayer, start praying in shorter, more focused settings throughout your day.  Prayers don’t have to be long in time and words to be powerful

2. Meditate on a short passage or one verse of scripture and ask the Lord, “Lord what do you want to show me?”

Bonus

A great book I highly recommend that you read is called Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. This will change the way you view prayer.  It did mine.

We also preached a series of messages on prayer by the same name, called Circle Maker. You can find those here: August 19 – September 9th of 2012

If you’re like me (Kevin), establishing discipline in myself can be excruciating at times. That whole “the flesh is weak” thing the Bible talks about rears its ugly head way too often in my life. The art of discipline has been abandoned in our society and the ramifications are going to be painful. It literally can be the difference between a full life and utter despair and ruin. With this in mind, Pastor Bobby and I will be tag teaming a six-week blog series on the Christian disciplines. It is our desire to see everyone at the Ridge come alive in Christ, and intertwining these disciplines can be a significant part of accomplishing that.

Before we dive in, let us properly define “discipline”. Discipline is training to ensure proper behavior, as well as the practice or methods of teaching and enforcing acceptable patterns of behavior. Think about Olympic athletes for a moment. They train for years in order to perform for just a moment on the world stage. That is highly impressive and shows tremendous dedication. But it does not  happen overnight. The constant training these athletes engage in builds muscle memory to ensure they execute their event to perfection. It is fascinating the amount of work it takes to train the body to perform when it matters the most.

This same concept applies to our spiritual lives. The disciplines train us to respond when times get tough. For example, practicing scripture reading, prayer, and fasting builds in us the resilience we need to press through difficult times because we understand that the presence of God is a safe haven, a shelter in the storm. Waiting to do these things when storms come, however, can make them ineffective and produce frustration because we expect an instant fix or solution to our problems. This is not how the Christ life works.

Over the next six weeks, we will introduce you to twelve Christian disciplines as described by Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline. Foster breaks the disciplines into three categories: inward, outward, and corporate. Each carries its own importance. Inward disciplines, as I mentioned earlier, build in us internal resilience as we regularly go into the presence of God and become increasingly comfortable there. The outward disciplines encourage humbleness and gratitude for what the Lord has given to us. And, finally, corporate disciplines teach us that gospel community is an important part of enduring the hardships of life, as well as celebrating and enjoying the blessings! Here is a breakdown of the twelve disciplines:

Inward disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, and study

Outward disciplines: simplicity, solitude, submission, and service

Corporate disciplines: confession, worship, guidance, and celebration

It is vital to point out that we must guard against turning the practice of these disciplines into religion. The Christ life is about a relationship with the Lord God Almighty. Nothing we do will ever take the place of what only He can do in us, which is to sanctify us and make us righteous. A danger to be aware of is that the practice of these disciplines can turn into pride and eventually become idols (aka religion). Instead, we must view these as tools provided to us by God to accomplish the great work He has begun in us.

Please join us the next six weeks as we talk about the Christian disciplines!

Follow Ridge worship leader Kevin Bradford on Twitter @kevinpbradford

Yesterday I outlined a few things that I (Bobby) need from you the Church.  Today I want to give you a few things you’ll get from me.

• Prayer.  I’m going to pray for you.  Not just for you, but with you. I will be praying for courage and boldness to step out and do the things I asked of you.  I will pray for you to be encouraged in your walk with the Lord.  I will pray for the needs that you send my way, when you say, “can you pray for me.”  
• I’m going to go first.  I will NEVER ask you to go or do something, that I’m not doing myself or have not gone first.  Good leaders always go first and go with.  I have never sent you out alone and I won’t do it now.  So if you’re inviting, I’m inviting. If you’re giving, I’m giving. If you’re praying, I’m praying.  I’m going with you.
• We’re going to bring it.  I will post on this next week, but at Ridge Church, I’m not the only one that preaches.  We have several gifted communicators that preach at our church and Lord willing, that will always be the case and there will even be more.  Between now and Memorial Day is a HUGE time in the life of our church as people from all over will give church a try.  So when your friends, your co-workers, your family, those you’ve invited show up, we’re going to bring the best message from scripture we have in us.  We’ll put in the wrench time to prepare and ask the Holy Spirit to use it mightily.  Every week.  Promise.
• I will make it easy to understand.  Sometimes we are hesitant to invite friends to church because we’re afraid that what is being preached will be hard to understand. It has long been my goal to make scripture understandable in the way we present it at Ridge Church without it being watered down.  We won’t water it down but we will explain it, so you have no fears.
• I’m giving it everything I’ve got plus what I don’t have.  I can honestly say I have never worked at any other job harder than I have worked at pastoring Ridge Church.  So I want you to know that I will continue to give it everything I have in the tank that is meant for the church and what I don’t have in the tank, I will ask the Lord to push through me.  To me, Ridge Church is not just what we do on Sunday; it’s the tool God is using to reach the city of Oak Ridge, transform hearts and spiritually renew people from all over.

Can’t wait to see you Sunday Ridge Church! 9:30am and 11:15- BRANG somebody!

How are we Ridge Church!?  This is pastor Bobby, and I wanted to take today and tomorrow and outline simply, what I need from you over the next few weeks, and tomorrow, what you’ll get from me.

This is a HUGE month for our church.  We add a second service starting this Sunday (9:30am & 11:15am) and Easter is coming up on the 31st.  So there are just a few things I need from you all this month….

• Prayer.  Will you, every time you think of it, pray, even if it’s just a short, quick prayer….1) Pray for the leaders and volunteers of Ridge Church  2)  Pray for how God uses these extra service times starting this Sunday 3) Pray for a supernatural movement of God on Easter Sunday through what happens here AND at other area churches. 4) Pray for each other
• Excitement.  Bring the excitement Ridge Church!  Not just on Easter, but every Sunday leading up to and after Easter.  We worship a God who is ALIVE and not dead…that’s stinking exciting!  Nothing fires me up more than to see you get excited
• Be a bringer.  In a few weeks in our Gospel series, we’ll talk about what it means to be a bringer, but you don’t have to wait for a message on inviting people to church to invite someone to church!  Did you know that most people, when invited to church, will come?  Don’t assume they go to church or know the Jesus you know- invite them to a Ridge service this week and for Easter.
• Get involved.  There are LOTS of areas you can get involved at Ridge Church. You’re missing out when you’re not serving in some capacity. There’s a reason God paints a picture in scripture about believers serving.  Not only do you get joy from serving others, but God does something IN you!  Don’t know where you can serve? Simple- email hello@ridgechurchonline.com and say I WANT TO SERVE.  We’ll help you find your place.

This last one is a little selfish, but I’m always trying to be as transparent and up front with you as I can be.  Can you pray for me and my family?  This time of year for me is SUPER stressful with everything going on and there are some days, honestly, the stress wins.  I wouldn’t trade what God has called me to do for anything in this world, but I’d like to do it for the rest of the time God has me here too.  A little extra wind under my wings with some prayer would be great and I know my wife and two kids would REALLY appreciate that too!

Come back tomorrow, because I’m going to outline what I’m going to do and am doing for you!

Love you Ridge Church!