OK, so several weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to be observing a new practice: The Daily Offices of Prayer.

I’ve been using a book by Phyllis Tickle, The Divine Hours, and I’ve been observing the morning and evening prayers, and, whenever possible, the midday prayers.

Let me tell you, it’s amazing! I’ve noticed my entire life become significantly more focused on God. The best way I can think of to describe it, is to say that my life has gone from starting out in prayer and moving into the daily grind, to each day revolving around moments of prayer. My entire day has become bathed in prayer. I’ve found that, even though I am observing some specific moments of recited prayer, my spontaneous prayer life has become considerably more active and enriched.

Furthermore, I’ve had several opportunities to actually pray the offices with several of my fellow Christ-followers. These have become some of my most treasured moments! When I pray alone, I am amazed at how much I feel the presence of believers around the world praying together at the same time, saying the same thing. You can’t even begin to imagine how much more profound this is when I’m actually able to take a few minutes at a coffee shop, or anywhere, and actually pray with other people, and we, in turn, are praying with others the world over! Talk about unity and togetherness…

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this lately, and it suddenly occurred to me: What if we put the power of the internet behind this kind of prayer? What if there was a way for anyone who wanted to pray “with the church”, as Scot McKnight puts it, to do so, in person, so to speak, even if they couldn’t get out of the house, or couldn’t get to a location where other believers are gathering?

Here’s the thing: There is a way! I don’t have it entirely figured out, yet, but we’ve got all kinds of tools available to us, like MSN and Skype, and a whole slew of other messaging and communication programs, and I intend to find a way to use those tools to let people connect and participate in prayer together, whether they are on a phone, or online, or even a cell phone.

Now, like I said, I don’t have this figured out, yet. I’m still trying to find a simple solution that gives the broadest results. So, if anyone has any ideas of any tools I can look at, preferably fairly low cost, or even free/open source, let me know.

For those of you who would like to start participating, even though we can’t talk to each other yet, check out Explore Faith. Simply scroll down, select your time zone, and then it will display the prayer for that time of day. I also highly recommend reading the notes to help you use the prayers in the left menu on the page.