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We chat with 24/7 Prayer founder, and author of Dirty Glory, Pete Greig about his new guide to prayer, How to Pray.
What is the best book you've read recently?
My wife Sammy and I are currently reading Alan Scot’s ‘Scattered Servants’. It’s absolutely brilliant and so helpful. I just finished Stephen Backhouse’s biography of Soren Kierkegaard which was fascinating.
For anyone who may not know you, how would you describe yourself?
I’m the Senior Pastor of Emmaus Rd, Guildford and a bewildered founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement.
What made you chose to do a back-to-basics book of prayer?
Everywhere I go people are asking ‘How to Pray?’ Nicky Gumbel who wrote the foreword says that the most downloaded day in his Bible in One Year devotional is always the one entitled ‘How to Pray’. So this really is the question people are asking more than any other. I’ve written various books about different aspects of prayer – my last one ‘Dirty Glory’ is full of miracle stories, and before that I wrote God on Mute which addressed Unanswered Prayer but I hadn’t ever written one about how to do it! This year is the twentieth anniversary of the 24-7 Prayer movement so it seemed like high time to pull together all the things we’ve learned over the past two decades in one simple, accessible book.
Is this book for anyone in particular?
I’ve written it as a ‘simple guide for normal people’. It’s for new Christians trying to get started in prayer. And maybe also for others who’ve been round the block a few times but need some help. It isn’t for people who’ve done degrees in theology and read hundreds of other books on prayer. One of the distinctives, though, is that it covers the full range of prayer - from Intercession and adoration to spiritual warfare and contemplation. There are chapters on listening to God and dealing with disappointments in prayer too. You don’t often get all those different aspects of prayer in a single volume. People seem to specialise on, say, contemplative prayer or intercession, which I think is crazy.
The title of your new book is ‘How to Pray’, do you think there is a 'right' way to pray?
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray he gave them the Lord’s prayer. That’s the backbone to the book. Each chapter explores a different line. The right way to pray is the way Jesus taught us to do it!
If there was just one thing you would want readers of ‘How To Pray’ to take away from the book, what would it be?
There’s a simple four-step way of praying I introduce in the book. The acronym is P.R.A.Y. which stands for Pause. Rejoice. Ask. Yield. I’ve found this incredibly helpful in my own life and so many people are already getting in touch to say that it’s helping them too. Last week a mum told me that she’d used it with her six-year-old at bedtime and they’d had their best ever time of prayer together. I’d love that really to catch on.
For anyone who wants to go further with prayer after this book, what else do you recommend they read?
At the end I recommend various books on each topic, such as C.S. Lewis’ ‘Screwtape Letters’ on Spiritual Warfare, but the best overview is, in my opinion, Richard Foster’s ‘Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.’ I would also strongly encourage readers to check out the videos that accompany each chapter of How to Pray on ‘The Prayer Course’ (www.prayercourse.org) This is a free resource, already used more than a million times, which has been re-designed to dovetail with the new book.
Which piece of prayer advice has stuck with you the most?
The best advice I ever received about prayer was this: ‘Keep it simple, keep it real, keep it up.’
As well as launching this book and the accompanying Prayer Course we have released a new free app to help people with their prayer lists. It’s called Inner Room. We have the Wildfires Festival In May (www.wildfiresfestival.com) and then our twentieth birthday celebrations in Belfast in October – everyone is welcome!
About the book:
The new book from Pete Greig, author of GOD ON MUTEand DIRTY GLORY, and one of the founders of global movement 24-7 Prayer - a straightforward, practical guide on how to pray.
Everyone prays.
Nothing matters more.
But no one finds it easy.
We need a little help.
Pete Greig has been teaching on prayer - and leading a non-stop prayer movement - for twenty years. Now, for the first time, he puts his life's work into a response to the question everybody ultimately asks: how do I pray?
This down-to-earth introduction to life's greatest adventure will guide you deeper in your relationship with God, helping you to become more centred and still, clearer in discerning God's voice, more able to make sense of your disappointments and more expectant for miraculous breakthroughs too. It's full of honest, hard-won wisdom interspersed with real-life stories - some humorous, others moving - to equip and inspire your prayer life. Journeying through the Lord's Prayer, and accompanied by online videos from The Prayer Course, which has been used by more than a million people, it unpacks nine essential aspects of prayer: stillness, adoration, petition, intercession, perseverance, contemplation, listening, confession and spiritual authority.
From one of today's most visionary communicators, for those who've been praying for years as well as those who want to pray but don't know where to begin, How to Pray is the simple, life-changing guide you've been waiting for.
