Skip to main content

S2: E66 Sunday Sip: Prayer

Season Two
Episode 66
Sunday Sip: Prayer



Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching. 


Something I’ve been more intentional about for the past month is my devotional and prayer time each morning.  It had become more of a thing to check off and a daily task than a meaningful time with God. I still learned more about Him, but it had a different feel to it.  It was mundane, usual, and just going through the motions rather than really taking time to listen, share prayer requests and thankfulness.


I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing to help rekindle my relationship with God through a shift in my morning routine has given me more desire to spend time with God and more intentional time in making it meaningful.  The first shift I made was as a result of the #last90days challenge put out by Rachel Hollis, author of Girl Wash Your Face. One of the parts of this challenge was to wake up one hour early every morning. I found that one hour early was too much for where I’m at in life, but waking up 30 minutes early was definitely doable.  During this time I chose to spend time doing a devotional and reading the Bible. On a side note I chose the study Stuck by Jennie Allen. It’s a beautiful way to look at your life and find God in it daily.  


During this Christmas season (and many other seasons of the year) finding ways to spend time remembering exactly why and who we are celebrating this month.  


Reading the Bible and doing devotionals has always come more easily for me than praying.  I tend to go towards things that I can ‘do’ rather than sitting quietly and closing my eyes to pray.  There are many ways to pray - standing, kneeling, face to the ground, sitting with others… Pray in silence, pray through songs - Remember by Lauren Daigle


  • Writing prayers
If you struggle like I do to pray without a wandering mind, writing prayers can be so helpful.  I find I’m more focused, I can visually see answered prayers.


  • How to pray
I always think of prayer as talking with a friend.  What are the concerns you talk with others about? What are the things you are celebrating?  What do you need more of in your life? What are the hard things you’re going through? Anything you would tell your closest friend is what you can share with God.  


  • Why pray

  • To communicate with God
  • To listen to God
  • To ask and pray for the needs of others and yourself
  • To remember that there is someone who is in control and who loves you


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

S4: E107 Active Listening Through Storytelling and Classical Music with Robert Franz

Season Four Episode 107 Active Listening with Robert Franz Robert Franz Website Stella's Magical Musical Balloon Ride Ted Talk: Active Listening and Our Perception of Time Robert Franz Bio: Acclaimed conductor, Robert Franz, recognized as "an outstanding musician with profound intelligence," has held to three principles throughout his career: a commitment to the highest artistic standards, to creating alliances and building bridges in each community he serves, and a dedication to being a strong force in music education.  As Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, and newly appointed Artistic Advisor of the Boise Baroque Orchestra, he has achieved success through his focus on each of these principles. His appeal as a first-rate conductor and enthusiastic award-winning educator is acclaimed by critics, composers, and audiences of all ages.  Composer Bright S

Recorder: What to do with Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns... it might be the bane of your existence, a song to start with students with B-A-G on the recorders that really doesn't affect you one way or the other, or a great song to use that is simplistic and gets the job done.  No matter what your feeling on it, it's likely that you've used it because it is effective at teaching simple rhythms, B-A-G and giving students a great starting place when learning recorder.  Personally, I find it useful but I'm honestly tired of it.  I decided to do something new with it this summer and wanted to change it so that it was more musical.  For many days of my summer break I spent time in the morning playing the recorder.  I wrote down melodies I had improvised and liked, played with modes and scales, added unpitched percussion parts/piano/guitar chords and enjoyed seeing what could be done.  Not all of the pieces were very good but it was a great creative way to figure out some solutions for recorder pitch sets, rhythms an

S6: E127 Mini Soundtrap Project

 Season 6 Episode 127 Mini Soundtrap Project In the last few episodes I’ve shared some Soundtrap lesson ideas that I created and used with students.  Podcasts, Fictional Character Themes, Found Sounds, and Poem with Loops.  Check out the resources provided for each of these lessons in the show notes or on the blog. Today’s episode is about a simple Soundtrap project that could be done as a collaboration by several students or by an individual in whatever time frame you provide.  The benefit of this lesson is that it’s incredibly flexible.  It could be done in as little as 20 minutes or as much as 45 minutes or more.  The idea is to allow students to create a piece containing a specific amount of loops that includes an introduction and ending.  Like I said super simple.  This might be a great way to introduce students to loops and even form structure depending on how you set up your rubric.   This was a lesson I used while I was out this past week and needed something that a substitu