Today's PAYG was centred on Luke's account of the giving of the Lord's prayer.  Looking through the eyes of the person making the request 'teach us to pray' we noted that:

• prayer was seen as important
• prayer was something difficult
• prayer was something other people seemed to be able to do (reference to John the Baptist teaching his followers how to pray)

I think that this is one of those things that never changes... we all think prayer is important, we all find it difficult and we can all be convinced that some other person or group of people have it sussed.

Sometimes I suspect we over-think it all - we recognise that there is nothing we can tell God that is not already known, so we wonder what we can say; we have moved beyond formulaic prayer and fear really, just, yes 'n' Lord, using cliches and holyfied waffle.  We have been taught to offer praise, thanks, confession and intercession, but, if we are honest, it's not so easy.

The Roots material we are using over the next few weeks is looking at prayer through the lens of some of the Psalms (90, 91 and 126) as set by the lectionary.  It is good to force ourselves to dig a little deeper into these psalms, some of which are less comfortable than others!

Sermon is progressing slowly.  Hopefully by close of play today I'll have a first draft.