
Prayer in the New Testament is presented as a positive command ( Colossians 4:2 1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Corporate prayer includes prayer shared within the worship setting or other public places, especially on the Lord's Day on which many Christian assemble collectively. There are two basic settings for Christian prayer: corporate (or public) and private. Many Christians have historically hung a Christian cross on the eastern wall of their houses to indicate the eastward direction of prayer during these seven prayer times. In these Christian denominations, and in many others as well, it is customary for women to wear a Christian headcovering when praying. Before praying, they wash their hands and face in order to be clean before and present their best to God shoes are removed in order to acknowledge that one is offering prayer before a holy God. Church bells enjoin Christians to pray at these hours. įrom the time of the early Church, the practice of seven fixed prayer times have been taught in Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray seven times a day "on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight" and "the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ's Passion." Oriental Orthodox Christians, such as Copts and Indians, use a breviary such as the Agpeya and Shehimo to pray the canonical hours seven times a day at fixed prayer times while facing in the eastward direction, in anticipation of the Second Coming of Jesus this Christian practice has its roots in Psalm 119:164, in which the prophet David prays to God seven times a day. The early Christians thus came to recite the Lord's Prayer thrice a day at 9 am, 12 pm, and 3 pm, supplanting the former Amidah predominant in the Hebrew tradition as such, in Christianity, many Lutheran and Anglican churches ring their church bells from belltowers three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening summoning the Christian faithful to recite the Lord’s Prayer. The injunction for Christians to pray the Lord's prayer thrice daily was given in Didache 8, 2 f., which, in turn, was influenced by the Jewish practice of praying thrice daily found in the Old Testament, specifically in Psalm 55:17, which suggests "evening and morning and at noon", and Daniel 6:10, in which the prophet Daniel prays thrice a day. Matthew 6:9-13) is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

The most common prayer among Christians is the " Lord's Prayer", which according to the gospel accounts (e.g.

While praying, certain gestures usually accompany the prayers, including folding one's hands, bowing one's head, kneeling (often in the kneeler of a pew in corporate worship or in the kneeler of a prie-dieu in private worship), and prostration. Ĭhristian prayers are diverse: they can be completely spontaneous, or read entirely from a text, such as from a breviary, which contains the canonical hours that are said at fixed prayer times.

Christian prayer is an important activity in Christianity, and there are several different forms used for this practice.
