Last week I launched what I like to call America’s Prayerbook, called PRAYERS FOR MY CITY: A Fixed-Hour Prayer Guide for Hometown, USA. It’s a modern prayer book that’s simple, accessible, and easy to use, combining the Psalms, Scripture reading, ancient creed, ancient prayers, and modern prayers to help you pray for your city.
If you grew up in or are part of the evangelical world that typically eschews ancient practices, fixed-hour prayer might be foreign. To help you better understand what it is and how it can benefit your own spiritual life, I’ve included a short chapter from the book that explains what it is. I discovered the power of fixed-hour prayer myself while working as a pastor of sorts on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. during the Season of Lent. It was a life changing experience for me, and I hope you find it as meaningful and as impactful.
You can purchase it now in print for $8.96 from amazon.com or as an ebook (Kindle, Nook, or Kobo) for the limited-time $2.99 price. As a BONUS if you purchase a print version email me the receipt (jeremy {at} jeremybouma.com) and I’ll send you the ebook for free. Enjoy 🙂
I’ve also included a link to a free PDF sample that includes introductory material to the book and the practice of fixed-hour prayer in addition to the entire Monday prayer guide. So jump start your week by using the ancient power of fixed-hour prayer!
You are holding in your hands a guide to one of the most historic practices in the Church. For thousands of years, God’s people have come to Him throughout the day to offer praise, confess sin, and cry out on behalf of others and themselves. They have joined with others around the world and across the ages to pray with one voice several times a day. This spiritual practice is known as fixed-hour prayer.
I first encountered the power of fixed-hour prayer while working in our nation’s government. I was a pastor of sorts on Capitol Hill for several years who met with Members of Congress for prayer, delivered Bibles to new Members, and led Bible studies and prayer meetings in both the House and Senate with congressional staffers. It was quite the unique opportunity and experience!
During the season of Lent, some congressional staffers and I discovered the ancient spiritual practice known as The Daily Office, which is also known as fixed-hour prayer. After discovering this historic Church discipline, a few of us chose to meet for a half hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning during the 40 days of Lent in order to center ourselves around the person and work of Jesus during this Holy Season. This was no small feat during the height of the Congressional year, which is defined by long work days, short deadlines, and even shorter tempers!
Our own practice was drastically pared down to accommodate the break-neck speed of the hustle-and-bustle of Capitol Hill, compared with the normal rigors of The Daily Office. But even with this condensed experience something—I dare say, magical—happened: we all experienced a deeper spiritual grounding and relationship with God in our life rhythm by participating in the rhythm of the historic Church.
I don’t mean to suggest fixed-hour prayer was a magical pill that instantly changed us and our perspectives on life. What it did, however, was help anchor us in Christ Himself as we participated in His Body, which in turn provided an oasis amidst the chaos of the week and reoriented our lives around the Eternal.
That’s what fixed-hour prayer does, because that’s what the historic Church does: it reorients us because it anchors us. As our lives become more cluttered and multi-tasked thanks to modern culture, and as our spiritual lives become more slick and “progressive” thanks to the modern Church, we need an anchor. That anchor is the historic Church and one of its tethers is fixed-hour prayer.
Fixed-hour prayer acts as an anchor because it causes us to adjust our own personal prayer lives to the sacred rhythms of the Church and Her praying tradition. It’s what one teacher calls “praying with the Church.” As he says, “When Christians pray at fixed times with set prayers, they join millions of Christians scattered across the globe who routinely pause two or three times or more a day to pray what other Christians are praying. We are joining hands and hearts with millions of other Christians to say the same thing at the same time. By doing this we are creating in our lives a sacred rhythm of prayer.”
We are praying with the Church, instead of simply praying in the Church as individuals.
For centuries, the Church has written down prayers and has always prayed at fixed times with set prayers throughout the day. In the life of the early church, such gatherings consisted of almost the same elements as Jewish prayer times: reciting or chanting the Psalms; reading the Old Testament, to which was soon added the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles; and singing songs, composed or improvised. From the early church and through the Middle Ages, Reformation, and even the 20th century, fixed-hour prayer has been an important part of personal and communal spiritual practices.
Something has happened with this practice, though. We’ve lost something in our technological and cultural evolution; a grounding in the wider, deeper streams of the community of Jesus and historic Church practices has been forsaken. As we move into sleeker forms of Church and more technologically savvy worship environments, a tethering to our deep historic past continues to fray. As society has become multi-tasked and cluttered, commitment to spiritual disciplines has waned and prayer is considered a waste of time.
I believe we need to recapture fixed-hour prayer for the 21st century in order to re-root and reunite the Church in the historic Christian faith, while also providing people an oasis amidst the chaos of modern life. This book is meant to help you discover—and, perhaps, rediscover— this ancient spiritual practice, while also connecting it to your 21st century Muskegon life.
I realize that for many, fixed-hour prayer is an unknown practice. It certainly was for me until I discovered it during Lent on, of all places, Capitol Hill. And for those who are familiar with it, you may have dismissed this discipline long ago as something entirely mechanical and impersonal. I think that was the case for my own church tradition. I think we didn’t do this growing up because my tradition thought prayer would be reduced to something that was vainly and meaninglessly repetitious. This does not need to be the case, however. I would argue that if any prayer becomes vain repetition—fixed or spontaneous—it’s because our own heart isn’t engaged, rather than what we say or how we say it.
What is fixed-hour prayer, then? How has it been practiced throughout the Church’s history? There is a solid historical, biblical, theological, and practical foundation to this spiritual practice, one that has enriched the lives of countless followers of Jesus and rooted the Church of Jesus Christ for two millennia.
The Church has long considered ordered prayers during the day a practice that is rooted in the Holy Scriptures themselves. As the Psalm declares: “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws” and “Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress…” The life and story of Daniel illustrates how important this practice of fixed prayer was to the Israelites. In Daniel 9 we read that he followed the Jewish customs of praying three times a day, even though he knew it would kill him. Throughout the Old Testament, we see how important the practice of fixed-hour prayer was to God’s people, the Israelites.
Israel was committed to praying when they got up, in the middle of the day, and when they went to bed, because this is what their Scriptures taught. Jesus Himself would have engaged in this practice. As a pious Jew it would have been impossible for Him to have not participated with all of Israel in this sacred rhythm. In the prayer life of Jesus we see three very important elements: the Psalms, the Jesus Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.
The Psalms were the backbone of this sacred Jewish tradition, and Jesus’ entire life would have been bathed in them. They were carried over by the apostles themselves and were deeply foundational for their own times of prayer, remaining so still today. In addition to the Psalms, Jesus would have included what one author calls The Jesus Creed, which is an adaptation of the Jewish Shema and amended by Jesus for His followers. At least twice a day, faithful Jews would recite “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus, though, added a second part: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Lastly, Jesus would have prayed the very words He taught His disciples to pray: the so-called Lord’s Prayer. Jesus told His followers to pray these words whenever they prayed, especially together in community; He would have, too. The Psalms, Jesus Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. These three elements shaped Jesus’ own prayer life, which was an adaptation of His own Jewish tradition. And these three elements have been shaping the Church’s prayer life for centuries.
As is clear from history, fixed-hour prayer has been part of the Christian tradition from the very beginning. Along with the Lord’s Supper, fixed-hour prayer is considered the oldest form of Christian spirituality. Early practicers of this spiritual discipline were trying to follow Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing,” in addition to the psalmist’s example to pray to God seven times a day. Many of the church fathers of the second and third centuries taught the practice of morning and evening prayers, as well as prayers at the third, sixth, and ninth hour. The Didache, a manual for Christian living from around the 2nd century, instructed the Church to pray three times a day. In his Rule, Saint Benedict of Nursia formalized fixed-hour prayer for his monks into what has become known as The Divine (or Daily) Office, which has continued in this basic form ever since.
Theologically, this prayer practice is unique because the structure is entirely God-centered. Whereas many prayers in gatherings and Bible studies are rightly petitionary or intercessory, fixed-hour prayer always is and has been exclusively an offering to God. Like the sacrifices of the Old Testament, this experience offers prayers of praise as a sacrifice of thanksgiving and faith to God—they are as sweet-smelling “incense of the soul” before the throne of God.
Practicing fixed-hour prayer is a routine that takes an amount of discipline and commitment. Fixed-hour prayer takes seriously Paul’s teachings in 1 Corinthians 9, where he calls on Christians everywhere to go into strict training and make our bodies our slave. (Re)discovering this ancient spiritual practice will help believers train themselves in order “to run in such a way as to get the prize.”
This sacred rhythm is not a magic pill that will solve all of your daily headaches and life problems. It is, however, a time-honored way that Jesus Himself taught His followers to prayer and how the historic Church has been praying ever since. And while many in the Church insist that we need to return back to the way the Church has always believed, I would like to suggest we also need to return back to the way the Church has always practiced, especially how the Church has always prayed. Perhaps re-rooting ourselves in the practices of the historic Christian faith will help re-root ourselves in the historic Christian faith itself.
Our world is speeding up, people are busy, and worship is considered a waste of time. I hope this book will provide an oasis in the middle of this chaos, and help you reorient your life around the Eternal.
