"Pray as you can; not as you can't".  People are afraid to pray.  Some simply cannot pray out loud. Others have never experienced effective prayer with their spouse, or a friend.  In most cases, we have all misunderstood just how simple it is to pray.  In this sermon we're going back to the true simplicity of prayer.

Prayer takes us to higher altitudes of perspective - even to the altitude where God dwells.  We come to see things from His perspective, our perspective changes

The gospel truth of what Christ has accomplished for us through the sacrifice of His body, once and for all, is the source of our spiritual confidence and the topic of our most genuine conversation.  As we learn to speak of Christ together, pray His sacrifice over one another, encourage His grace in each other, we will grow stronger and stronger in spite of the deterioration of the world around us. 

Far too many of us walk life spiritually alone.  We face our problems alone.  We keep them to ourselves.  We battle temptation alone.  We fight bravely, but we fight without wisdom.  Scripture tells us that we should "confess our sins to one another, and pray for each other that we may be healed."  When we learn to be more open and honest with each other, appropriately confessing our weaknesses, we will experience prayer for one another that DOES make a difference.

When it comes to relationships, it is often better to fight (verbally) than to avoid communication all together.  But what about our relationship with God?  Do any of us really fight with God?  Wrestle with Him?  Argue, plead, kick and scream?  Or do we just put on our starch-ironed WWJD T-shirt and act like everything is hunky-dorey in public while in private we've decided that we're just not going to talk to Him because nothing about Him makes sense?  Maybe it's time to take a look at some Scriptural examples of just how people engaged with God.

This week we take a look at one of the most challenging topics related to prayer.  It's rarely talked about.  But it happens all the time.  We know it's present but we just rarely deal with it.  This week we'll take a look at "Unanswered Prayer".

Gary Walter (former pastor of local church "Common Ground") joins Pastor Glenn in a spiritual dialog as they seek to uncover how to get from the desperate prayers for relief from the hell of life's circumstances to a calm and enduring faith.

Twenty-five years ago, January 28, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated in flight, just over 70 seconds into its mission, killing all 7 crew members.  The CNN corespondent commenting on the flight took 25 seconds to utter his first words after the horrific accident - probably the longest 25 seconds in his broadcasting career.  He just didn't know what to say.

Sometimes, when we approach God in prayer, we don't know what to say either.  A tragedy, an abuse, a persecution or some other terrible thing has occurred and we just don't know what to say to God.  This week we'll take a look at Scripture's suggestions for times like that

Like a man who can't tell whether an apple is really good or not without tasting it, so the effectiveness of prayer and the blessed realities of the grace of God through Jesus Christ, can't be understood from the outside.  They have to be tasted and lived to truly understand.  In this final sermon in the Simplicity of Prayer series, you'll hear a powerful testimony of what God can do in the life of a praying executive secretary and a challenge to go deeper into an experience with God.