Prayer in the Park
Practice
Set a weekly time. Meet at the park for an early morning, afternoon, or on the weekend.
Keep it simple. Praying in the park for 15-20 minutes keeps it accessible and repeatable.
Invite others. Praying in a park is shared space that is easy to invite others to join.
Walk and pray. There are often paths to walk around the park while praying.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer provides shared language and a framework to pray with people from various Christian traditions.
Reflect on the rhythm. How does regularly praying in a park form your prayers?
Parks provide a shared place to pray in the neighborhood. Prayer is the first and foundation to all spiritual practice. All other practices are formed from communicating with God in prayer. Praying in a particular place is a practice from the life of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, it records that Jesus frequently went to Gethsemane with his friends to pray in an olive grove. It was a quiet place of natural beauty near the city, but away from the chaos and clamor.
Similarly, most parks are embedded in the neighborhood, but insulated from the noise of traffic and distractions of commerce. Parks are places to see the diversity of the daily life of a neighborhood. All ages, ethnicities, and incomes access them. Neighbors who may not otherwise cross paths intersect at a park.
To pray regularly in the same location is to be open to seeing with a new lens the neighborhood and it’s needs. The rhythm of praying in the park will shape how you see the neighborhood throughout the week, and the location will begin to inform your prayers. It provides local context to your communication with God.
The practice of praying in a park allows you to invite others to participate. A park provides a shared space and common ground. People who live in the neighborhood who may attend different local congregations, or participate in various expressions of the Church, can come together to pray in and for the neighborhood. The simple practice of praying in a park will help guide your prayers for people and ground your prayers in place.
