The thing that we keep coming back to over and over and where the name of this series comes from is that we need to be taught how to pray. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and he goes on to teach them The Lord's Prayer.

We don't believe Jesus meant that we should recite it every time we "pray" but there’s gotta be a reason why He taught it.

In this message, Pastor Joel discusses the Lord’s prayer is the archetypal prayer. How the elements of this prayer teach us the basics that we need to know about a prayer time.

He goes through it line by line.

What is prayer? Prayer is communication with God.

That’s a very open concept, because we can communicate in a myriad ways.

Through song, some of us in silence. We can just whisper a word, a thought, reciting a Psalm or a prayer that is already written…

We can say something in our own words, for a few seconds or for a long time.

In public or in private.

And honestly, throughout a life of following Jesus, we’ll use all of those, we’ll pray in a thousand different ways. Which is a good thing. Because we will face so many different situations and be in so many different circumstances that we will need to avail ourselves of all of those modes of communication.

How is prayer the secret to everything?

We are starting in-person services again… but, should we just go back to business as usual? Or is God trying to do a new thing? What we feel is that over the past few months, we’ve learned some things, and God has shown us some things… and now we have a new vision for what God wants to do:

A church fueled by prayer
A church committed to the teachings of Jesus
A church devoted to practicing the way of Jesus
A church that extends beyond our geographic boundaries
A church of welcoming community

God is in control and He is sovereign...but what happens if I make the wrong decision?

How does God speak to us? When it comes to seeking God’s guidance for our lives, how can we listen for God’s voice, but also how do we know it is Him speaking and not last night’s pizza? In the third episode of the Into the Unknown series, pastor Joel talks about 4 ways in which God guides us and why we should not be anxious of making decisions about our future. 

We’re currently in this series that talks about following God “Into the Unknown." The main idea is that, we are following after God’s presence, that God is the one who guides us, and when we talk about that aren’t we really asking the question: What would Jesus do? And wouldn’t it be great to always know the answer?

But we’re not in the times of Exodus...there’s no actual cloud to follow.

In the first episode of the series, we talked about organizing our lives around God’s presence; which is all all fine and great but… how does God actually guide us? Are we going to hear a voice? Are we going to open the Bible at the right page and our eyes are going to come on the right verse, is an angel going to show up?

Now we do believe that some people at some moments have heard from God like this. But for the most of us, for the most part, this sort of stuff does not happen does it?

And what happens is that we end up either upset at God because we feel like He is being silent when He could speak to us. Or we end up upset at ourselves for not being good enough to get God to tell us what to do. If only we were holier then maybe God would speak to us.

So which is it? Is God just being fickle? Are we doing something wrong?

Or are just thinking about this whole idea of hearing from God and listening to God’s guidance the wrong way?

How do we follow God when we don't know what's ahead, when we have just gone through a year like 2020?

Pastor Joel responds to the events that transpired in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, January 6th.

Visit https://www.encounterdc.com/blog/tendaysofprayer to follow along our Ten Days of Prayer Campaign in response to the attack on the Capitol.

How do we face 2021, in the aftermath of 2020? Now that we are aware of the fact that so many of the things we took for granted were not as solid as we thought and that life is so much more unpredictable and sometimes dangerous than we assume, should we embrace the optimism that says “this is going to be your year” and the illusion that if we set plans and resolutions that we are going to achieve our goals not matter what? Or the fatalism that looks at the future as grim and painful and difficult. Or is there a different way to face 2021?