Church of England Hopes to Stimulate Nation's Prayer Life

The Church of England has launched a new resource that incorporates clips from the hit films Four Weddings and a Funeral, Dead Man Walking, and Truly, Madly, Deeply in a bid to boost the nation's prayer life.

The Life Source resource, published yesterday, is aimed at small study groups and the film clips are ideal conversation starters for a number of faith issues, including the ways in which God acts in the world, genuine listening, and the nature of human relationships.

The course is ideal for Lent study groups and will encourage members to "discover a new found joy and delight in prayer" by examining major aspects of a balanced prayer life, founded on the idea of prayer as relationship with God, the Church of England said.

The 90-minute sessions use a Bible study along with a range of interactive activities to introduce and explore different ways of praying, drawn from Christian heritage down the ages.

The course authors, Canon Robert Warren and Rev Kate Bruce, designed Life Source to support both those new to the Christian faith who wish to deepen their new-found relationship with God, and those longer-standing Christians looking to bring some fresh sparkle to their prayer life.

Kate Bruce, a chaplain at Durham University, reflects that "many people seem to experience a sense of guilt and failure around prayer, perhaps because we tend to treat prayer like a chore to be completed rather than a gift to be enjoyed; a task rather than the exploration of a relationship.

"We hope the book will maybe encourage people to engage more deeply in prayer."

To help individuals in this, Life Source looks at five distinctive styles of prayer including The Lord's Prayer, lectio divina (a way of listening and responding to Bible passages), and Aaron's Blessing (taken from the Biblical Book of Numbers). The book also contains a wealth of brief reflections to help in the discipline of prayer from writers such as the Bishop of Jarrow, the Rt Rev John Pritchard, and the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell.

The Rt Rev Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans, has commended the course as "a book about praying which is rooted in God and in our humanity, full of good sense, encouragement and joy."

Last year's recommended Lent Course, Life Balance, sold more than 14,000 copies - more than one for every parish in the country.