Prayer Boot Camp: Strategies & Pitfalls

Welcome to Boot Camp

The Prayer-Relationship Strategy: 3 Words

Mission Self-Assessment

Strategies and Pitfalls

Personal Prayer Goal-Setting

Q & A

Where are you?

Phase Minutes per day of quality conversation with Jesus Christ

Fat Camp 0-5

Basic Training 6-14

Mission Ready 15 +

From the Top

• “Our daily prayer is a conversation— a ‘phone call home’—which we need to strengthen and renew our lives. One hour at Sunday Mass is not going to be enough. One hour surely would not be enough for our spouse or best friend.” Bishop Loverde, Go Forth

PRAYER = A DEEP CONVERSATION

Hungry for Ideas? Google it!

“How to pray?”

About 147,000,000 results (0.27 seconds)

“How not to pray?”

About 197,000 results (0.46 seconds) 

“How to Pray?”

•How to pray when you’re depressed

•How to pray if you’re an atheist

•How to pray the right way

•How to pray when you’re pissed at God

From “Dad is Fat” by Jim Gaffigan

Having five kids is like living on a construction site. Silence is startling to me at this point. Once, a moment of silence actually woke me up: ‘What’s

that? Is a tsunami about to hit?’

From the very top…

“Enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.”

“Christian triumph…a victorious banner borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil.”

– Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 272, 85

From the Soldier’s Creed

I am an American Soldier.I am a Warrior and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

Mission First: The Purpose of being a Man of Prayer

• Our families (our vocation)

• The men we are mentoring and leading in the faith (“Go and make disciples”)

• Friends, extended family, colleagues, and neighbors whom God has placed in our lives to share His life with (evangelization)

Don’t Believe this is Your Mission?

Nearly a third of Catholics believe in an impersonal God…in other words, an

“impersonal force.” –Pew Landscape Survey, 2008

“That means that many among us do not have a personal, intimate relationship with

the source of our very being.”–Bishop Loverde, Go Forth with Hearts on Fire, p. 18

Here’s why we need to lead in prayer: Young Adults Who Stay:

1) Have experienced God’s presence and seen answered prayer.”

2) Can ask and openly discuss their real spiritual questions in the Christian community.

3) Understand the Gospel at a deep level.4) Have seen communities of faith and

older adults authentically live their faith.

Hemorrhaging Faith, 2012

“THANKS. SORRY. PLEASE.”-- POPE FRANCIS

1.The Procrastinator

2.The Fair-Weather Man of Prayer

3.The Smug Man of Prayer

3 Pitfalls

1. Thank You: The Man of Gratitude - Adoration/Praise & Thanksgiving

2. Sorry: The Contrite Man - Contrition

3. Please: The Intercessor - Listening - Supplication & Intercession

ACTS: Adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication

Three Strategies

What Now? Plan of Life (cf. Bought with a Price)

Morning Offering & 10 minutes

Convert your Commute Prayer during the day

Leadership in evening family prayer

Prayer with your Spouse

Examination of Conscience & Act of Contrition

Your Sabbath Restoration Plan

• Schedule it daily: “Thanks. Sorry. Please.”

• Plan of Life (see Bought with a Price)

• “Invite one”: “Consider the implications of every Catholic inviting just one person to Christ.” – Bishop Loverde, Go Forth

Schedule it. Commit. Get out of Fat Camp. Invite One.