A Glossary of Prayer Terms
| Adoration | When you simultaneously give thanks for what God has done and revel in who God is, you are praying your adoration. |
| Examen | We all benefit from seeing the truth about ourselves, but hard truths can be very painful. In the prayer of Examen, we turn inward and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to the truth. |
| Formation | We seek God, that we may be more like Jesus. God seeks us, that he may bring his creation to full fruition. In formation prayer we seek the One who seeks us and respond like clay in the hands of the Master Potter. |
| Forsaken | God is not at our beck and call, and sometimes we feel that he is far away. We keep praying, anyway, for where else could we go? |
| Heart | In the prayer of the heart, we cry out to "Abba!" our "Daddy." In this intimate prayer, we learn from God what a father is. |
| Intercession | In intercessory prayer, we enter most richly into the faith practice of encouragement. We put the concerns and needs of others ahead of our own and love them in prayer. |
| Labyrinth | A design which, though complex, has a single clear path to the center. This design is often used as a tool for prayer. |
| Meditation | |
| Ordinary | Working. Waiting. Cooking dinner. Scrubbing toilets. Tucking a child into bed. We offer the commonplace, the everyday, the ordinary pieces of our lives to God. We live our prayers as we keep doing what must be done. |
| Petition | We are completely dependent on God. He wants us to ask, and he rejoices to answer. We grow in faith as we learn to ask from the center of his will for us. |
| Rest | Everyone yearns to rest, yet nobody feels free to let go of goals and timelines. God calls us to a sabbath rest that may happen on any day. Be still. Know God. Give up control and receive refreshment. |
| Simple | This is the prayer you don't learn. It wells up within, perhaps wordlessly. It is your instinctive conversation with God, unfettered by anybody else's perception. It may be raw with emotion and stammering for words. Here is where we all begin. |
These books may help you to grow in the discipline of prayer
Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home, by Richard J. Foster
Truly Present, by Lisa E. Dahill
Grounded in Prayer, by Brent W. Dahlseng
O Lord, Teach Me to Pray, by Richard F. Bansemer