I arrived in London in November, started going to Globe soon afterwards, but hovered at the edges for a time. I felt dry spiritually, which perpetuated the hovering, and meant the Globe Equip series on Prayer when it came was a real gift, like God was throwing the door wide open.

This was the first Equip series Globe had run on prayer and the series was just three weeks, but each week was rich in both teaching and doing. I found myself wanting to pray each week with a passion I’d lacked, wanting to lift my burdens to God or receive his own burdens for the world.

In our first week we examined our attitudes and hearts as we came to prayer. Establishing that prayer is nothing more or less than communion with God, we thought more about the practicalities – did prayer move God to action? How could we become disciples in prayer, learning from those who did it well? We were encouraged to treat prayer as a craft to be honed over a lifetime, by looking to those around us and before us.

The second week offered a deeper meditation on the prayer life of Jesus, the man who lived and breathed in communion with the Father. As he encountered the sin and suffering of the world his heart remained tender, without breaking, through committing everything to his Father in Heaven. It’s worth reading the gospels just to see how often, and how, Jesus prays too. It was a discipline – he would rise early in the mornings and seek privacy, but it was also spontaneous – he prayed because his heart was so moved by people. It is good to feel the weight of the world in prayer. We don’t always feel like praying though, even when we most need it. There will always be some distraction to occupy us, or we let our hearts grow cold through unrepentant sin, where the Devil tells us we are not worthy to approach God. If we expect prayer to be easy, or only pray when our hearts are moved, we will eventually stop praying altogether.

So we considered the practicalities of prayer: what habits could we embrace, or avoid, to focus our prayer? Advice was straightforward and challenging: settling on a location for regular prayer, turning off our phones, considering our physical posture, praying for hunger when we felt distant, carving out long periods of silence, and praying with expectation.

We also looked at different styles of prayer, including prayer in unison (tongsung, or ‘Korean Prayer’), which we practised. The tendency to view prayer as a checklist fades when you encounter the ways different churches, traditions and nations practise prayer and encounter God.

Hosting each session in a home with a hot meal created an open environment where everyone could chat and share their thoughts. I got to know people much better and loved attending each week. So however easy or hard you find prayer, I’d recommend going to the next Equip series. It’s a place where you can learn, teach others, or think about it seriously for the first time, but vitally a place to feed your own prayer life.

Globe Equip is a series of modules on different areas of Christian life and theology that help us grow as disciples. Our main module, Globe Equip Foundations, is a great place to start, and will next run in the autumn. If you want to dive deeper, we have two new modules coming up over the next few months, one on Bible Handling, and another on Faith & Work. Check your weekly email for more information, or email info@globe.church to find out more.