I was listening to a service on the radio a couple of weeks ago and the congregation recited the Lord’s Prayer.

Colours in the park on a sunny November morning.

So on a beautiful autumn morning we spent time in prayer using the Lord’s prayer as our model.

Christians seem to use this prayer in a variety of ways. Some us it as a template for the way to put prayers into words, others who prefer a daily ritual type of prayer see it as an important way of staying close to God by using the familiar words, others still like the communal act of praying the same words together as an act of unity.

To put the prayer in context, it was the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray in the middle of all the important teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about the way we should live. So I guess it is an important prayer.

We read six different versions of the Lords Prayer to each other in pairs.

Including a paraphrase by Sarah Dylan Breuer, The Lord’s prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book, Eugene H. Peterson’s version from The Message, the 1662 Prayer Book version and the Anglican Alternative service book. Plus these two that raised a smile:

Following that we used the version of the Lord’s Prayer we are most familiar with to pray as we went on a slow walk. Taking each part and using it as a prompt for worship, confession, and praying for issues and people.

We were all given a part of the prayer and we were asked to come up with a short paraphrase of it, which we put together at the end and then read it aloud.

This is what we came up with:

The Lord’s Prayer by Third Space

God, who cares for us,

The wonder of your presence fills us with awe.

Your name, your very nature, is holy.

All creation resonates with it!

Let all people come to proclaim it!

May we move into your presence and unimpeded love.

Let not our will, but your will and purposes be fulfilled in our lives here on Earth.

Give us the material things you know we need to survive.

Release us – as indeed we release others – from the debt of wrong doing.

Strengthen us for difficult times.

Liberate us from all that is evil.

For You reign in majesty, in love,

 Power and glory from the beginning of time and forever more.

Amen