BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God [Hardcover]

Doug Pagitt (Author), Kathryn Prill (Author), Colleen Shealer Olson (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2005

It’s possible for prayer to become so routine that it’s almost meaningless. Head-oriented prayer can focus on getting the words just right, while leaving out the rest of who you are. BodyPrayer helps you become fully engaged in prayer as you connect with God using more than mere words.

By practicing various postures of prayer–many of them identical to those modeled in Scripture–you will open your life more fully to God. Body prayer involves all of who you are as you enter into communion with God, either individually or with other believers.

Join Christians throughout history who used their entire being as a prayer–in expressions of joy, gratitude, and entreaty, as well as worship and devotion to God. This biblically based guide will help you practice a richer, more meaningful expression of prayer–one that involves your body as well as your soul.

This is prayer that goes deeper than words.

Engage your physical senses in a spiritual discipline…

If your spirituality lacks passion, you can find new life in the ancient practice of body prayer. When you adopt postures that express the burdens of your heart, you bring all of who you are into God’s presence.

BodyPrayer invites twenty-eight ways to involve your entire being as you connect with God. Whether you pray in submission with forehead touching the ground, or in exaltation with arms outstretched and eyes raised to heaven, you will find new spiritual vitality in prayer that expresses all of who you are.

Avoid the recitation of empty words and move your prayer life into the realm of whole-life engagement. When you use your body to express what words often fail to say, you are drawn closer to God. Body, soul, and spirit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pagitt (Preaching Re-Imagined) and Prill provide ideas and specific guidelines for praying using the body—i.e., praying for strength with your hands crossed over your chest or for healing with your palms out, facing up—with a goal of "help[ing] you connect with God at every level of your life—body, mind, and spirit." The 30 short sections of the book provide instructions for specific prayer postures, each with some introductory comments, a prayer, instructions, and room for journaling. Each posture is illustrated with a full-page drawing (which, unfortunately, does not always exactly match the written instructions). Though Christian, the book is informed by an almost New Age sensibility; many of the prayers sound more like self-focused meditations than requests for something from God, and often skirt around the issues they're supposed to address, for example, the prayer for healing: "The power and love of God/ Keeps us from falling/ Washes us clean/ And places us in the kingdom as pure beings." Scripture references are included in the notes but not in the text itself. Some conservative evangelicals will likely be uncomfortable with the book, while those in the emergent church may welcome new physical approaches to prayer. (Nov. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for
BodyPrayer

“We are called not only to pray without ceasing, but also to pray with our whole selves. BodyPrayer is a gentle guide to doing just that. Simultaneously subversive and traditional, the logic of BodyPrayer is holistic, anti-Gnostic, and potentially transformative.”
–Lauren F. Winner, author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath

“By sharing the rich prayer life of his Minneapolis church with the world, Doug Pagitt reflects a whole new way of looking at ‘church’–less in terms of ‘what is your mission statement’ or ‘statement of faith’ and more ‘what are your practices and embodied rituals that are uniquely yours?’ BodyPrayer is one of the first books to appreciate that embodied mediation is a key process by which theology is communicated and lived.”
–Leonard Sweet, author of Out of the Question…Into the Mystery and the trilogy AquaChurch, SoulTsunami, and SoulSalsa

“You can’t get any more biblical than this! God created us to worship Him with our bodies. Because of the Fall, God became incarnate to restore our worship of Him. Because of a body that suffered on the cross and a body that rose from the grave, God redeems us to worship Him–not in some disembodied soul but in, with, and through our bodies. BodyPrayer makes it real.”
–Robert Webber, Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary, author of The Younger Evangelicals

“This small guide to physical prayer is huge in its message. Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill here return the body to its original place in, and importance to, Christian worship. We should all be grateful.”
–Phyllis Tickle, compiler of The Divine Hours

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400071488
• ISBN-13: 978-1400071487
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug is a speaker and consultant for churches, denominations and businesses throughout the United States and around the world on issues of postmodern culture, social systems and Christianity.

Doug has worked in churches, for a non-profit foundation and owns three businesses in Minneapolis.

Doug's current professional endeavors include pastoring a Holistic Missional Christian Community in Minneapolis - (www.SolomonsPorch.com), speaking and writing (www.DougPagitt.com) and owner of JoPa Productions (JoPaProductions.com)and host of Doug Pagitt Radio (www.DougPagittRadio.com).

He is seeking to find creative, entrepreneurial, generative ways to join in the hopes, dreams and desires God has for the world.

Doug is married to Shelley and the father of 2 young adults and two teenagers.

Doug has a BA in Anthropology and a Masters of Theology from Bethel Seminary.

Doug is the author of A Christianity Worth Believing (Jossey-Bass 2008),
Church Re-Imagined (Zondervan 2004),
Preaching Re-Imagined (Zondervan 2005), and
BodyPrayer (Waterbrook 2005).
He is the co-editor of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Baker Books 2007).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great resource, November 15, 2005

By 

Bob Hyatt (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God (Hardcover)

This book is a fantastic resource not only for one's private devotional life, but for an entire community, helping to lead through various types of prayer.
Each chapter is a different type of prayer, with a short explanation, a written prayer and a "prayer posture"- a way to stand or gesture to use as you pray this particular prayer that will help you experience it and say it and pray it in a more tactile way. There's also a space to journal at the end of each chapter.

Types of prayers covered include: prayers of kindness, for strength, of praise, for courage, for guidance, of thankfulness, for change, for forgiveness, for the poor...

I could see both myself and my church community as well as communities like us making great use of this book, praying in many different ways, with many different stances. Pastors should consider this book as a good resource to get for those in your communities who help craft the experiential elements.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incarnational Prayer, December 20, 2010

By 

Joshua Morgan (California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God (Hardcover)

This review first appeared on my blog, Jacob's Café.

This post is part of my series on prayer books. This was one book in the series I purchased and did not receive a complimentary review copy.

BodyPrayer was one of the first books I purchased by Doug Pagitt, and I love it. He is currently posting excerpts from the book on his blog, so that's a great way to get a free introduction to the book. He is also offering a special discount on several of his books, including BodyPrayer.

This small hardcover book is also written by Kathryn Prill and illustrated by Colleen Shealer Olson (when one of the authors is well-known, others get overlooked, so I don't want to overlook them! :) ). The size makes it very user-friendly, as it is quite mobile. One of the practical difficulties is that with it being a hardcover, it doesn't always stay open on its own. So if you're trying to do a prayer posture while reading, it can be a challenge! :)

As indicated by the title, a major focus of this prayer book is not as much on contemplative prayers or meditations (although short ones are included in it), but rather including our bodies in our prayers. As the authors state, so often we forget about our bodies when engaging in prayer and with our spiritualities. As I often discuss on this blog, an Incarnational approach, recognizing the humanity of our spirituality, is very important. This is one of the few prayer books that is centrally Incarnational, which I appreciate.

The authors note that including the body in prayer actually has a long history in Christianity, although we often forget about it in Western Christianity. They offer several suggested prayer postures for various themes and events. One of the things I particularly appreciate is that they explicitly state in the introduction that these are not meant to be formulaic or perfect solutions to prayer. Rather, they are suggestions, essentially prompts for us to engage in prayer in deeper, more holistic ways. I think just approaching prayer slightly differently like this can be particularly powerful.

This book has helped me remember to pay attention to my body during times of prayer and make sure that I posture myself in a way that is most meaningful during that particular prayer. I also used it a couple of years ago during a spiritual formation presentation at my church to help people engage more holistically. There was some initial awkwardness, but people generally had a positive reaction to it. So this book can definitely be used both individually and in a group.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Practical, November 7, 2006

By 

J. Shay (Meadville, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God (Hardcover)

For each body prayer, there is a description, a posture and a prayer starter or meditation. It's been a great resource to get our people out of the pews and involving them more in their prayer. Our youth love the postures and have taken the idea to create more of their own.