BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God

It’s possible for prayer to become so routine that it’s almost meaningless. Head-oriented prayer can focus on getting the words just right, while leaving out the rest of who you are. BodyPrayer helps you become fully engaged in prayer as you connect with God using more than mere words.

By practicing various postures of prayer–many of them identical to those modeled in Scripture–you will open your life more fully to God. Body prayer involves all of who you are as you enter into communion with God, either individually or with other believers.

Join Christians throughout history who used their entire being as a prayer–in expressions of joy, gratitude, and entreaty, as well as worship and devotion to God. This biblically based guide will help you practice a richer, more meaningful expression of prayer–one that involves your body as well as your soul.

This is prayer that goes deeper than words.

Engage your physical senses in a spiritual discipline…

If your spirituality lacks passion, you can find new life in the ancient practice of body prayer. When you adopt postures that express the burdens of your heart, you bring all of who you are into God’s presence.

BodyPrayer invites twenty-eight ways to involve your entire being as you connect with God. Whether you pray in submission with forehead touching the ground, or in exaltation with arms outstretched and eyes raised to heaven, you will find new spiritual vitality in prayer that expresses all of who you are.

Avoid the recitation of empty words and move your prayer life into the realm of whole-life engagement. When you use your body to express what words often fail to say, you are drawn closer to God. Body, soul, and spirit.

Doug Pagitt is the founding pastor of Solomon’s Porch, an emerging church in Minneapolis, and the author of Reimagining Spiritual Formation. A former director of Young Leader Networks for the Leadership Network, he is a leading voice in Emergent and a cutting-edge thinker in the emerging church movement. Coauthor Kathryn Prill is a poet/writer and a contributor to Reimagining Spiritual Formation.