Welcome to The table.
As a community splitting our time evenly between our “Gathered” and “Scattered” expressions, this resource page is updated on a bi-weekly basis with scripture study notes for our OUTPOST-based “Table” Sundays (2nd and 4th Sundays every month). This same text will then be the focus of our teaching and corporate worship on the “Gathering” Sunday (1st and 3rd Sundays every month) which follows.
We also provide a link whereby anyone may join our “VIRTUAL” TABLE outpost (on “Table” Sundays) via ZOOM at 10:00am each 2nd and 4th Sunday, should they be unable to join us in person on any given week.
For our ZOOM study group, we invite folks to download the study notes (link below) and dig in for some personal study time beforehand: beginning around 9:30am, or whenever otherwise convenient. At 10:00am, we fire up the ZOOM meeting and come together for a group conversation about our observations, interpretations and applications from the text. We close our time together in prayer.
table Resources
“Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1)
THE COMMONS is taking The Prayer Course!
From September through December 2023, for our study and teaching series in both TABLE and GATHERING spaces, we will be journeying through the Lord’s Prayer as a community, using the excellent resources developed by The Prayer Course as a framework. In our Outposts on TABLE Sundays, the provided video and study guides will be a resource to direct our conversations. On GATHERING Sundays, we’ll take a deeper look at these same texts and themes, and provide further opportunity for application.
That we would learn to pray is, simply, the heart of discipleship.
It is telling and significant that, of all the things that the very first disciples, those apprentices of Jesus, saw him do and say and accomplish during the years of his embodied ministry with them, the one thing that the scriptures record them specifically ASKING Jesus to teach them was to PRAY like he did. Not how to preach, or build a movement, or raise money, or work miracles… but to pray. They observed him, in his daily practices of intimate communion with God the Father and knew, somehow, that THAT was what they should most desire to know and come to experience. Our journey with Jesus will lead us to the same realization, if we are paying attention.
Prayer is the key to revival.
Revival - whether of an individual heart, a home, a church congregation, or an entire region - knows no other beginning or basis than concerted, ongoing, persistent prayer. Prayer is the currency of spiritual hunger, desire, invitation and intimacy. It is the place and practice of coming into the presence of God and declaring in myriad ways “We want you here… I want you here… Bring yourself, your love, your holiness, your rule and reign to bear in this place… Your kingdom come, your will be done.” We cannot rightly accuse God of being distant (often tempted as we are to do so), when in truth we have cultivated and expressed little-to-no actual desire for Him to draw near to us. The testimony of Scripture is clear: The Lord draws near, in comfort and in power, to the heart, home, congregation and region that hungers - earnestly desires and persistently cries out - for Him to do so.
Lord, teach us to pray.
The Spirit is on the move, around the world and in our midst, and here at The Commons we are filled with a sense of expectation for the season ahead! But lest we miss out on what Jesus has in store, we sense that we are being invited to become a people who are day-by-day learning to pray; joyfully and expectantly, practicing adoration and petition and intercession, contemplation and listening and contending, growing ever in desire for and intimacy with our God.
Join us as we learn, together!
The Prayer Course consists of eight sessions:
1.) Why Pray? || 8/27 (TABLE) & 9/3 (GATHERING)
2.) Adoration || 9/10 (TABLE) & 9/17 (GATHERING)
3.) Petition || 9/24 (TABLE) & 10/1 (GATHERING)
4.) Intercession || 10/8 (TABLE) & 10/15 (GATHERING)
5.) Unanswered Prayer || 10/22 (TABLE) & 11/5 (GATHERING)
6.) Contemplation || 11/12 (TABLE) & 11/19 (GATHERING)
7.) Listening || 11/26 (TABLE) & 12/3 (GATHERING)
8.) Spiritual Warfare || 12/10 (TABLE) & 12/17 (GATHERING)
Resources for each session can be found at https://prayercourse.org/sessions/ , or week-by-week by clicking on the session titles, above:
For further study: We recommend that folks who are interested in taking a “deeper dive” into this Fall 2023 teaching series pick up a copy of “How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People” by Pete Greig. Pete is one of the architects and presenters of The Prayer Course, and this book is a companion volume to the content that we will engaging with over the weeks ahead. Click on the image above for purchase options.
For those participating in our ONLINE OUTPOST, log into our TABLE Sunday ZOOM call via the link below: