Resting in God

Christian contemplative prayer originated in the earliest days of the Christian church with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, lay people who lived a life of simplicity and poverty in the deserts of Palestine, Egypt and Syria. These were the first Christian monks, although the church had no formalized hierarchy at the time. Through the middle ages, Christian contemplative practice was preserved in the monasteries and abbeys, although to a large degree these traditions were lost after the Reformation.

In recent years the Church has witnessed a resurgence of these practices, which include, for example, centering prayer, meditation, and lectio divina, the prayerful reading of the Bible. In contrast to many Christian practices that focus on understanding God through ideas, contemplative practices seek to develop an inward peace and quiet so that we move beyond words and ideas to an inward experience of God-within-us.

Montview Church holds regular contemplative prayer classes as well as an opportunity for prayer on most Sunday mornings at 9:30. 

For more information, please contact Ann Christensen, Montview’s Director of the Center for Spiritual Life at (303) 355-2095, x117  or christensen@montview.org.