I pray, but there are many understandings about prayer. For many, prayer is talking to God, sometimes a great list of requests and needs—sort of like a child’s Christmas list mailed to Santa Claus. But at least for me, prayer is becoming a time of listening rather than talking. There is so much noise in our world and our lives (much of our own making); prayer becomes a quiet space that enables us to stop talking long enough to see what God might be trying to say to us.

The disciplines of prayer, silence, and contemplation as practiced by the monastics and mystics are precisely that—stopping the noise, slowing down, and becoming still so that God can break through all our activity and noise to speak to us. Prayer serves to put all parts of our lives in God’s presence, reminding us how holy our humanity really is. (The Great Awakening: Seven Ways To Change The World, 290)

Rev. Jim Wallis

See also:

STRANGER AND STRANGER GLOBAL BEDFELLOWS EMERGING

DIANA BUTLER BASS ON CHRIS ROSEBROUGH, INGRID SCHLUETER, AND KEN SILVA IN SIN

BRIAN MCLAREN AND HIS NEW EMERGING PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

RICHARD ROHR AND THE EMERGING CHURCH AS THE THIRD WAY

THE EMERGING CHURCH, PHILIP CLAYTON, AND NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON OTHER RELIGIONS 

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON CHRIST