Customer Reviews

BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God

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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.

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.

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.

This is a wonderful little book and filled to overflowing with beautiful ways to offer our body to God in praise, thanksgiving, and wonder. As the Lord abides in us, how much more are we called to respect our bodies and offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Thank you to the author and the illustrator, who shared these prayers with us. It is simple in content, but can lead you to deeper connection with God and creation.

This book doesn't stand alone well, but for those interested in the spiritual discipline of praying, this definitely can shed some new light on experimental prayers and prayer postures. I recommend this for anyone who is wanting to be more physical with their Christian life.

This book required all of me. My mind, my body, my soul and I am forever grateful to the authors for leading me into an active engagement with prayer. Not a quiet gathering in a circle but a fully engaged wholly applied prayer life. This is perfect for corporate and individual worship - for early morning matins or before bed devotions. Thank you Doug and Kathryn for this gift to the Church! I am most prayerfully yours, Don