SCHOOL OF PRAYER

A nine-month study and practice of the rule of life at the vital intersection of contemplation & justice

 

We are not meant to work out our faith alone or without guidance.
The School of Prayer will help you make a plan to heal and become a healing presence.

 
  • Discover and re-discover a variety spiritual disciplines

  • Delight in the graceful fellowship of a confessional community

  • Discern and implement your own unique spiritual practice

  • Develop a working understanding of contemplative prayer and its vital relationship to justice.

  • Expose your heart and mind to God through the experience of black people in America

  • Orient your life around a long-term vision of healing toward an integrated wholeness, a path to becoming human being fully alive!

We are accustomed to self-reliance. In the School of Prayer we learn God-dependence.
We joyfully practice the cruciform life of Jesus so that we can more readily
make a response of love to God with our lives.

 
 

Rule of Life

How we measure out our lives—our time, energy, attention, and love for God. A rule of life is our plan to give ourselves to God and to become like Jesus.

 

God is inviting you to take a next step.
Now, let’s discern your life’s response
deeper into his life & love

 

How to Join the SOP:

  1. Please carefully look over this page, the overview in detail, & watch the informational videos.

  2. Enter prayerful, discerning conversation with a close spiritual friend, pastor, or spiritual director.

  3. Fill out and submit the inquiry form.

    Then we will setup an in-person or zoom meeting with you!


finding God in
the wilderness

The geography of transformation

Each of us will eventually come to see that our lives have become unmanageable. All we have worked on in the first half of life—it’s just not enough. Powering through, leveling up—these former ways only increase trouble.

In the second half of life we learn to accept that there is no technique or seminar, no book or teacher that can solve our problems.

Instead, God invites us to the wilderness, to surrender to bewilderment, to find God in and through your wounds, weaknesses and failures.

 
 

SOP Testimonials 2020-2021

2019-2020 Andrew Mead, Co-Pastor of Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids Michigan shares from his experience of the eight month journey with the School of Prayer.