Scripture ties breath to life itself — God breathed into Adam and he became a living being (Genesis 2:7), and the Psalms close with “let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:6). A breath prayer takes that connection and makes it practical: a short phrase, small enough to fit one inhale and one exhale, that you carry with you through the day.

It’s one of the oldest ways Christians have prayed — the desert fathers and mothers used to breathe a single line of Scripture for hours at a time — and it’s one of the few forms of prayer you can do with your eyes open, in traffic, in a waiting room, mid-argument, without anyone knowing you’re praying at all. Paul’s charge to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) is hard to picture until you’ve tried this.

How to Practice It

Choose a short phrase — six to eight syllables is plenty — that splits naturally into two halves. Sit or stand comfortably, and simply breathe: the first half of the phrase on your inhale, the second half on your exhale. That’s the whole practice. A few to start with:

• Inhale: “Be still and know” / Exhale: “that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
• Inhale: “Come to me” / Exhale: “and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
• Inhale: “The Lord is my shepherd” / Exhale: “I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23:1)

Repeat slowly for a few minutes, or return to the same phrase throughout your day whenever you need it.

Scripture

Genesis 2:7 · Psalm 46:10 · Psalm 150:6 · 1 Thessalonians 5:17

ACTS is likely the most widely taught way to structure a prayer time, and it works as a front door because it doesn’t require you to know anything before you start — just four postures your heart takes before God, in order. That order matters: it mirrors the shape of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13), which begins with who God is before it ever gets to what we need.

Christians have prayed in roughly this shape for a very long time — the third-century theologian Origen described nearly the same pattern of praise, then confession, then thanksgiving, then request, in his treatise On Prayer.

How to Practice It

Move through each in order, spending as much or as little time as feels natural in each:

• Adoration — Praise God for who He is, not what He’s done. “You are holy.” “You do not change.”
• Confession — Name honestly where you’ve missed the mark, and receive His forgiveness. Don’t linger in shame; 1 John 1:9 promises He’s faithful to forgive.
• Thanksgiving — Thank God for what He’s done. Be specific.
• Supplication — Now bring your requests, for yourself and others. Most of us start here out of habit — try ending here instead, and notice what shifts.

Scripture

Matthew 6:9–13 · 1 Timothy 2:1 · 1 John 1:9 · Philippians 4:6

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He didn’t hand them a script to recite by rote — He gave them a pattern, a set of categories built to hold whatever your actual life looks like on a given day. Early Christian teachers treated this prayer as foundational: Tertullian, writing around 200 AD, called it “an epitome of the whole Gospel” — the entire good news, compressed into a single prayer. It’s likely the most universally prayed passage in Christian history, and it works as well used as a template, line by line, as it does recited together.

How to Practice It

Move through the five petitions in order, letting each become a category you fill with your own specific situation rather than a line you simply repeat:

• “Hallowed be Thy name” — Begin in worship, not request. Before asking for anything, remember who you’re speaking to.
• “Your kingdom come, Thy will be done” — Submit before you ask. Are you willing to hear what God actually says here, even if it corrects the plan you came in with?
• “Give us this day our daily bread” — Name today’s actual need — not last week’s, not next year’s, but what you genuinely need right now.
• “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” — Examine your heart. Is there anyone — or anything — you’re still holding onto? Release it here, as many times as it takes.
• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” — Ask for protection, not just provision.
• “For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” — We’ve come full circle from the start. God is sovereign, Holy, and still in control.

This isn’t a formula that earns an answer, and it isn’t the only way to pray — it’s one shape to lean on when you don’t know where to start.

Scripture

Matthew 6:9–13 · Luke 11:1–4 · Hebrews 4:16

This is a prayer your body joins, not just your words. Quaker theologian Richard Foster gave it its name and form in his landmark book Celebration of Discipline — two simple postures for two simple movements: releasing what you’re carrying, and receiving what God offers in its place.

How to Practice It

Sit comfortably and turn your palms face-down on your knees. Silently name what you’re carrying and release it, one thing at a time — a worry, a grudge, a fear. When you’ve emptied your hands, turn your palms face-up and name what you’d like to receive in its place — His peace instead of your anxiety, His patience instead of your irritation. Then simply rest there in silence a few minutes. Foster is firm on this last part: don’t ask for anything else. Just let God be present with you.

A note: This is sometimes confused with Centering Prayer, a related but distinct practice (Trappist monk Thomas Keating’s method of resting in silence with a single sacred word). Palms Down, Palms Up is the more accessible entry point; Centering Prayer is its own, deeper discipline for another season.

Scripture

1 Peter 5:7 · Psalm 55:22 · Matthew 11:28–30

Lectio Divina — Latin for “divine reading” — treats Scripture not as a text to master but as a word meant to master you. It’s built on four unhurried movements, first laid out by Guigo II, a twelfth-century Carthusian monk, in a short letter called The Ladder of Monks: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation — four rungs of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. “Reading seeks the sweetness of a blessed life,” Guigo wrote, “meditation finds it, prayer asks for it, contemplation tastes it.”

How to Practice It

Choose a short passage — four to eight verses is plenty. Read it slowly, aloud if you can, four separate times, pausing between each:

• Lectio (Read) — Read the passage once, simply noticing it.
• Meditatio (Reflect) — Read it again. Let one word or phrase catch your attention — don’t chase it, just notice it and sit with it.
• Oratio (Respond) — Read a third time. Speak back to God whatever the word or phrase stirred in you.
• Contemplatio (Rest) — Read a final time, then simply rest in God’s presence without more words.

Scripture

Psalm 119:97–105 · Joshua 1:8 · Hebrews 4:12 — or any short Gospel passage or Psalm to start

Visio Divina — “divine seeing” — is Lectio Divina’s visual counterpart: instead of a passage, you sit with a sacred image and let it slow you down the way a slowly-read verse would. Praying with images is ancient — Eastern Christians have prayed with icons for well over a thousand years, and for most of church history, when few people could read, stained glass and illuminated manuscripts served as Scripture for the eyes.

How to Practice It

Choose an image — a painting, an icon, a photograph, even a stained glass window if you’re in the sanctuary. Sit with it in silence for a minute before doing anything else. Then:

• Look — Let your eyes move over the whole image, then let them settle wherever they’re drawn. Don’t analyze it; just notice.
• Reflect — What feeling or thought rises up? What does this detail remind you of, or ask of you?
• Respond — Speak to God about what you’re noticing.
• Rest — Let your eyes settle, and simply be present with God and the image in silence.

Scripture

Exodus 20:4–6 · 1 Corinthians 13:12

The Psalms are the prayer book Jesus himself prayed from — he quoted them throughout his ministry, and even from the cross. For most of church history, praying through the Psalms wasn’t optional devotional material; it was the backbone of daily worship, and that thread runs straight into Methodist hymnody: John Wesley’s very first published hymnal, in 1737, was titled A Collection of Psalms and Hymns.

What makes the Psalms unique is their honesty. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann observed that the Psalter moves through three seasons: orientation (life makes sense, God is good), disorientation (the ground gives way — psalms of lament, which make up nearly a third of the book), and reorientation (God brings you through). Most of us only ever pray the first kind. The Psalms hand you permission and language for the other two.

How to Practice It

Read a psalm slowly, aloud if you can. Let the words become your own rather than words you’re observing from a distance. If you’re in a season that feels good, try a psalm of orientation (Psalm 23, Psalm 100). If you’re in a hard season, don’t reach for something falsely cheerful — try a psalm of lament instead (Psalm 13, Psalm 42, Psalm 88). The Psalms don’t require you to arrive at hope before you’re ready; several of them end unresolved, and that’s allowed.

Scripture

Psalm 13 · Psalm 22 · Psalm 23 · Psalm 42 · Psalm 88 · Psalm 100

Most prayer moves in one direction — we talk, God listens. Listening prayer flips that: you stop speaking and make room to hear from God instead. This isn’t a borrowed novelty in Wesleyan theology — it sits close to the center of it. Wesley built one of his signature doctrines, the Witness of the Spirit, on Romans 8:16 (“the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children”), teaching that God’s Spirit really does communicate directly and inwardly with the believer’s own spirit. His own “heart strangely warmed” at Aldersgate was, by his account, exactly this.

But Wesley was just as insistent on the guardrails, warning against both “formality” (denying God speaks to us inwardly at all) and “enthusiasm” (treating every impression as God’s literal voice, unchecked by anything else).

How to Practice It

Find a quiet space and sit in silence for a few minutes before asking anything. When your mind settles, ask a simple, open question — “Is there anything you want me to know?” — and wait. Don’t chase words; notice what rises: a phrase, an image, a sense of peace or unease, a verse that comes to mind. Whatever comes, hold it loosely and test it: Does it align with Scripture? Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience (Galatians 5:22–23) — or does it produce anxiety, pride, or division? If you’re uncertain, bring it to a trusted pastor or mature believer before acting on it.

Scripture

Romans 8:16 · 1 Kings 19:11–13 · John 10:27 · Galatians 5:22–23 · 1 John 4:1

The Examen is a short daily practice of reviewing your day with God — not to catalogue your failures, but to notice where God was present and where you missed Him. It comes from Ignatius of Loyola, and it has a striking, unexpected connection to your own tradition too: Methodism’s very name comes from this exact kind of daily practice. At Oxford in the 1720s, John and Charles Wesley’s small group of friends were mocked as “Methodists” precisely because of their methodical habit of examining their own souls each night. Two very different traditions landed on nearly the same instinct: don’t let a day pass unexamined.

How to Practice It

Set aside five to ten minutes, usually at day’s end. Move through five simple steps:

• Gratitude — Look back over the day and thank God for whatever you notice, big or small.
• Ask for light — Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see the day as God saw it, not just as you remember it.
• Review — Walk back through the day. Where did you feel God’s presence? Where did you resist it?
• Respond — Bring what you noticed to God honestly — sorrow where it’s needed, gratitude where it’s due.
• Look ahead — Ask for grace for tomorrow, and let that be enough. You don’t need a plan, just an openness.

Scripture

Lamentations 3:22–23 · Psalm 139:23–24 · 1 Corinthians 11:28