Talk 5 – Why and How

Do I Pray?
Duration 30 Minutes
HTB Transcripts

Key:

P – Personal story that Nicky Gumbel tells in his Alpha talk. These may be replaced
with a live speaker’s personal story or the speaker may tell the story about Nicky in
the same way Nicky tells stories about others.

S – Story that Nicky tells about someone else (about a friend or a story he heard or
read about).

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Talk summary:
 People pray in all cultures – and everybody prays in crisis – why do we do that?
 Christians pray to grow their relationship with God – an intimate loving Father
 Christian prayer is to the Father, through the Son and by the Spirit
 There are rewards to prayer (presence peace and power)
 God answers prayers differently (yes, no, wait)
 If it’s a no/wait – we may realise later why God didn’t answer at the time – but
sometimes there’s no reason: I just have to trust that God is good and he loves me
 Jesus taught us how to pray (The Lords Prayer). There is no set formula but a simple
model to remember is: ‘Thank you… Sorry… Please…’
 Keep it simple, keep it real, keep it going
KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 NOTE: Parts of the talk may need to be contextualized for other contexts or cultures but make
sure you maintain the key elements of humor and personal testimony. Notice how
quotes, and stories are used throughout to add emphasis to the main points of the
talk (theology and testimony).

NOTE: The strength of this talk is the use of personal testimony and stories to illustrate
theological points. Try to use your own personal stories, or stories of those you know,
for this talk to have maximum impact.

Praying is becoming increasingly fashionable in our society. I came

across a recent poll, which found that eighty per cent of Britons still
believe that prayer can be answered, in spite of a dramatic drop in
church attendance. Only one in seven people insist they would never
resort to prayer in the face of problems in their lives. Interestingly,
teenagers and people in their twenties are more likely to pray than
their parents’ generation.

P Before I was a Christian, there were only two types of prayer that I
Personalise this story with
your own examples of
how you prayed or viewed
prayer before you were a
Christian.
The joke has been
highlighted red so that
you can insert it into your
own story.
prayed. The first one was kind of like a formula that my granny taught
me, although my granny was not a churchgoer. But it went something
like this: ‘God bless Mummy and Daddy’ and it ended ‘Make me a
good boy. Amen.’ And I used to pray that like every night, kind of out
of superstition, really. And then the other prayer was a kind of
desperate prayer, like the schoolboy overheard emerging from a
geography exam praying: ‘Oh God, please make Paris the capital of
Turkey!’

I was an atheist, but in my year between school and university I

travelled around America on a Greyhound bus, on one of those, kind
of, ‘rover’ tickets. And I lost all my luggage, which was in a rucksack,
most of my money. Basically the only things I was left with were my
passport and a tiny bit of money. And I was so lonely. I went and lived
on a hippy colony for ten days, but then I basically travelled 500 miles
a night. The Greyhound bus became my hotel – I slept overnight. And
I just got really desperate.

And one time I cried out: ‘God, I just want to meet someone I know!’
And the following morning I got on the Greyhound bus at 6 am in
Phoenix, Arizona, and I saw an old school friend of mine on the bus,
and I just went: ‘I don’t believe it!’ He’s still a friend of mine, and
every time he sees me he goes: ‘I don’t believe it!’ And he lent me
some money, and apparently I spent all the money buying socks! My
daughter and his daughter are great friends, and my daughter always

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 teases me. She says, ‘Dad, why did you just buy all those socks?!’
God answered my prayer, but I just put it down to coincidence. I didn’t
take any notice of it at all.

In the forty years since I’ve been a Christian, prayer has become the
number one priority in my life. Not that I’m an expert in prayer. You
know, I still find prayer really difficult. I find, when I start to pray, my
mind wanders all over the place: all these distracting thoughts. And
often, you know, I think I haven’t got time to do it, and so on. So I’m
not at all good at it. But I love praying! Why is that?

Talk Point 1
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN PRAYER?

Well, first of all, what is Christian prayer? It’s the most important
activity of our lives. It’s the very purpose for which we were actually
made: to have a love relationship with God. And all love relationships
thrive on communication. The more we communicate, the more we
grow in love, the more our love flourishes. And it’s the same in our
relationship with God.

The apostle Paul put it like this. He said: ‘through Jesus we both’ –
Ephesians 2:18
(paraphrase)
that’s kind of Jews and Gentiles, the whole known world – ‘have
access to the Father by one Spirit’.

So Christian prayer is to God as our Father.

Images of the Prodigal A couple of weeks ago we looked at this sculpture, which I love, that
Son sculpture can be
found at Charlie Mackesy did of the Prodigal Son. And this is a picture of what
charliemackesy.com God is like: a loving Father.

I used to think that God was kind of dictatorial; I don’t know,

judgmental, like a kind of cosmic policeman out to get me. And
Try to personalise the
text in red – or omit. atheists often describe God like that. And I don’t believe in a God like
Alternatively you could
make the first point as a
that. This is the kind of God I believe in: the God that Jesus described
general comment about as a loving heavenly Father.
how some people view
God and personalise the
second part.

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

P We have had the immense privilege of having our grandson – my
daughter’s first child, Brave – to live with us for the last ten weeks.
Insert your own similar They’ve just moved out. And grandchildren are so amazing. I heard
example to illustrate
God as a loving somebody say that if they’d realized how amazing grandchildren are
heavenly father. – you get all the blessings without any of the hard work! – that if
they’d realized how amazing it was, they’d have gone straight to
having grandchildren! And it’s been absolutely amazing watching this
little boy in our household.
But what I’ve observed is that he gives his parents a really tough
time! He’s up all night. They’re awake every two hours. He constantly
needs his nappy changed. Pippa and I changed his nappy once, or at
least; I think that Pippa changed it more than that. I’ve changed the
nappy once with her assistance. But I don’t think we got the timing
very right, because as soon as we opened it up it was apparent that
he hadn’t quite emptied his bladder and, in a way that only little boys
can, he sprayed both me, Pips and everything in the surrounding
area! He’s constantly sick over them, and all this stuff. And yet they
adore him. We adore him.
If our friends treated us like that, we wouldn’t adore them! But
somehow, because it’s your child, you love them.

God in the Bible is described as both like a father and a mother: he

just loves us – not just as a baby, but growing up.

S There’s a guy, who’s hosting a group on this course, called Alex

Douglas. He said how he’s got these amazing parents. But he said
Omit text in red to that when he was growing up, when he was a teenager, he was
generalise and use
this story in your own actually very rude to them. His mother had MS, and his father was
script. Alternatively such a kind, lovely man but he was still very rude to him. And this is
replace with your own
similar story. how he put it. He said:
‘I was a greedy, greedy child. I stole from my parents over a long
period of time.’ And when he was fifteen his parents found out, and
there was this great big row – lots of shouting, screaming in the
kitchen. And he said, ‘I’d become the worst human being, and it all
hit me. I ran upstairs, slammed the door, then piled all my furniture
against the door and sat by my bed. I remember hearing my dad
coming upstairs and sit against the door, and I always remember
these words he said to me: “Alex, I don’t know what you’re thinking
or what you’re going through, but I need you to know that me and
your mum love you. We try and provide for you. We give you
everything we have. Is that not enough?”

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 ‘And there was a silence that could have gone on forever. And then I
heard my dad quietly say: “Please, please, son, open the door. I really
want to hug you right now.”’

That’s the loving father who wants to hug the son. And Alex said, ‘I
never experienced God like at that moment. I never understood the
gospel more.’

That’s God’s love for you. And Jesus said he’s our Father in heaven.
He’s the Creator of this entire universe. You know, our sun is one of
300 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of 100 billion
galaxies. And yet, in a throwaway line in the book of Genesis, the
writer says: ‘He made the stars also’ – just like that, boom, the entire
cosmos was created.

And in a way the power of prayer depends on our grasp of who it is

to whom we’re praying. So it’s to the Father through the Son. A couple
of weeks ago we looked at how this was made possible through Jesus:
we have access to God through Jesus. Also, we can pray to Jesus.
Personalise the text in Most of the time I pray to Jesus. Jesus said: ‘I have called you friends’
red.
and I love just to talk to Jesus as a friend. We have access to the
Father through Jesus by one Spirit: that’s the Holy Spirit.

That’s why the Weekend is so exciting: we look at the subject of the

Amend the text in red Holy Spirit. We were looking last week at how Jesus knocks at the
according to whether
you are running an
door of our lives. If we open that door, he comes in by his Spirit. That
Alpha Weekend or an is God living within us. And God helps us to pray. St Paul says: We
Alpha Day.
don’t really know how to pray as we should do, but the Spirit helps
us.’ The Spirit of God living within us helps us in our weakness.

Talk Point 2
WHY PRAY?

So why pray? Well, all relationships are based on communication.

Often marriages break down for a lack of communication. But with
good communication they grow and they flourish.

And Jesus said this:

Matthew 6:6 ‘When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your
Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in
secret, will reward you.’

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 So what are the rewards of prayer?
First of all, the presence of God.

P I have a very good friend called Brother Luigi. He’s a Benedictine

monk, and he was the abbot of a monastery and he now teaches at
An audio recording of the Pontifical University in Rome, and he is the most holy, godly,
Nicky Gumbel in
conversation with prayerful man, certainly one of the most prayerful people I’ve ever
Brother Luigi at the met in my entire life. And so I asked him. I said, ‘Luigi, how do you
HTB Leadership
Conference 2014 can begin your prayers?’ And he surprised me. He said, ‘I start with a time
be downloaded from
here.
of complaining.’ I said, ‘Sorry? What did you say?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I
complain.’ I said, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, I say to
You may tell this story
about Brother Luigi or
God: “Oh, this is a complete waste of time. I’ve got so much to do.
omit or replace the Why do I need to pray?”’
example to illustrate a
simple way of praying
and experiencing the
‘And then,’ he said, ‘I start to meditate on a verse, like something like
presence of God. I love you, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.’ And he said as he starts
to do that, all the kind of knots inside him start to untie, and then he
finds his heart burning within him. And then he just totally loses track
of time in the presence of God.

The presence of God, it satisfies that spiritual hunger we all have. It

quenches our spiritual thirst. It refreshes our soul. Prayer is like the
soul breathing.
So, the presence of God. Secondly, the peace of God. I don’t know
Personalise or omit the
text in red .
about you, but I really struggle with fear, anxieties, and worries. Both
my parents were big worriers. They always had to have something to
worry about. I heard of one mother like that who texted her grown-up
daughter. She just sent this text. She said: ‘Start worrying – details to
follow.’ And I was like that, and I’m tempted to worry.

Q Someone said that ‘worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you

something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere’.

Corrie ten Boom said: ‘Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its troubles,
but it empties today of its strength.’

Philippians 4:6–7 And the apostle Paul says this: ‘Don’t be anxious about anything, but
in everything, by prayer and petition,’ – that’s asking for things – ‘with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. ‘And the peace of
God,’ – that amazing peace, the peace of God – ‘that transcends all
understanding, will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.’

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 The peace of God, it’s not about being in a place where there’s no
trouble or problems or hard work; it’s about being in the middle of
those things and still having a peace in your heart. It’s kind of like the
deep ocean current when there are the winds and the waves on the
surface but there’s stillness underneath.

And then perspective. One of the things I find is when you start to
thank God, when you start to say: ‘Oh, Lord, thank you that...’ My
prayer is: ‘Thank you that I’m alive! Thank you that I’ve got two feet –
I can walk. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the blessings.
Thank you for family. Thank you...’ and you start thanking, and you
suddenly realise: ‘Wow, there’s so much to thank God for!’ And it puts
your problems, your worries, in perspective.

And then the power of prayer. Prayer not only changes us, but it also
changes situations. Of course, you can’t prove the existence of God
by answers to prayer. But what I’ve found is it’s amazing what
happens when we pray.

P When I first became a Christian, I heard about prayer and I thought,

‘Okay, I’ll try it.’ So it’s just a really trivial thing: I needed to get a lift to
Use your own simple London. We were in Cambridge, and I wanted to get a lift to London,
example of an
answered prayer. and there was a train strike. So I just prayed. I said: ‘Okay, God, I’d
Alternatively you could love a lift to London.’ Literally a few moments later there was a knock
tell this story about
Nicky, but a personal on the door and this guy Peter said: ‘Hey Nicky, would you like a lift
example would be
more effective.
to London?’ I thought, ‘That’s so weird! I’ve just prayed about that.’
So I thought, ‘I’m going to try something else.’ I thought, ‘I’ll pray for
my mother.’ I knew she had insomnia. And so I started praying. I
didn’t tell her, but for a week I prayed that God would give her sleep.
At the end of the week, I said, ‘How are you sleeping?’ and she said,
‘It’s really strange. I’ve slept so well the last week!’ I thought, ‘Wow,
that’s amazing.’

And through the last forty years, I’ve kept these prayer diaries – not
Key line in red to link
to the story.
all the time; I’m not doing them at the moment; but I’ve got dozens
of these. And I write down the prayers, and then I go back and I just
tick them. And it’s an amazing thing. You could put it all down to
coincidence.

Q But William Temple, the great Archbishop of Canterbury, said: ‘When

I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.’

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 Talk Point 3
DOES GOD ALWAYS ANSWER PRAYER?

So I guess the next question is this: does God always answer prayer?
In a sense, yes, he always hears our prayers. But like a good parent,
he doesn’t always just say ‘Yes’, because a loving parent won’t say
‘Yes’ to all the child’s requests. It’s a bit like the traffic lights: there’s
a kind of— Green is ‘Yes, go’, Red is ‘No, stop’ and Amber is ‘Wait’.
So Green, if you like, are all these prayers that I can look back in my
prayer diaries and see they’ve got a tick. But then sometimes there
are ones that don’t have a tick, the ones where the answer seems to
be ‘No’. And sometimes, in my own experience, later on you realise
why the answer was ‘No’.

P I can think of two occasions in my life where I have really desperately

wanted something and I prayed for it over and over again. One was
Replace with your own to do with when I was a barrister. There was a particular set of
personal example of a
time when you prayed chambers that I wanted to get into, and I really prayed that I’d get
for something and God into it, and I didn’t. Another was about a particular theological college
closed the door, which
was hard to take at the I wanted to go to and the year that I wanted to go, and I really, really
time, yet, looking back
you are thankful that
prayed, and it didn’t happen. Now I look back and I’m so thankful
God didn’t answer God didn’t answer those prayers, because if he’d answered either of
those prayers as you
wanted at the time.
those prayers I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now. Now, you
might wish that he had answered those prayers! But personally, I’m
so glad that I’m doing what I’m doing, because I love my job.

Sometimes, though, I think we won’t know in this lifetime why God has
not answered our prayers.

P I think of an occasion some years ago when I was playing squash. I’m
a regular squash-player, and I was playing squash with one of my very
Replace with your own best friends, who was also the churchwarden of this church and also
personal example of a
time when God did not a regular squash-player. And he played a beautiful backhand drive,
answer or respond to and then he turned to play the forehand and he just dropped down
your prayer and you
feel you will probably with a heart attack, from which he died.
never understand why,
but have committed to
keep praying and And I have never cried out to God more that he would let him live
trusting God through it.
than I did at that moment. He had six children, the youngest six, up to
eighteen. In fact, the one who was six is right now a host on this
course. But we had to tell each of those children, and it was the most
painful thing – and still is, still is today the most painful thing for me.

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 Five o’clock in the morning, the following morning – obviously I
couldn’t sleep, and I was out praying, and just crying out to God. And
I said, you know, ‘God, I just don’t understand. I don’t think I will ever
understand in this life why this has happened. But I’m not going to
give up trusting you. I’m not going to give up praying.’

Q Corrie ten Boom said this: ‘When the train goes through a tunnel and it
gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still
and trust the driver.’

So there’s ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and then there’s ‘Wait’, which is the Amber. If
a child asks to drive the car, you’d probably say ‘No’. But it doesn’t
mean ‘No’ forever: there will come a time when that request will be
answered.

P This is one of my prayer diaries, from 1989. I happened to be looking

through it yesterday and I came across a couple of prayers that
Omit or replace with hadn’t been ticked. And they were actually for my children. And as I
your own example.
read them, I thought: ‘Wow, those two prayers have been answered!’
and I put a tick, thanking God. And I put a date: 2015.

Just because something isn’t happening for you right now doesn’t
mean it won’t happen. God’s timing is perfect.

Talk Point 4
HOW DO WE PRAY?

So, how do we pray? Well, like all relationships, there are no rules.
Personalise or omit the Like my relationship with my wife Pippa, it’s not like ‘This is how we
text in red.
have our conversations!’ We have conversations in all kinds of
different ways! Sometimes there’s a little bit of an agenda we go
through. But you’re totally free to talk to God in any way that you
want.

Personalise the text in And over the years I’ve had many different patterns of praying.
red.
Sometimes I’ve used the Lord’s Prayer as a sort of structure. I’ve had
different ways of praying. But I’d say that what’s common to all the
different ways that I’ve prayed is three things, and they’re the three
things that you teach children right from the start, aren’t they: ‘Thank
you. Sorry. Please.’

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 It is really important to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. There’s so
much to thank God for. You know, ‘count your blessings, not your
problems’.

And then ‘Sorry’. I came across this prayer: ‘So far today, God, I’ve
done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t
been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent – and I’m really
glad about that. But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed,
and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help.’

I always find there’s plenty to confess. Why do we need to confess

our sins? Because Jesus died on the cross for us. He took all our sin.
We’re totally forgiven. That’s what we were looking at a couple of
weeks ago. So why did Jesus say, ‘Well, pray forgive us our sins’?
Well, Jesus used a visual aid to explain this.

The night before he was crucified, he had dinner with his disciples,
and at the end of dinner he got down with a towel and started
washing their feet. And when he came to Peter, he was about to wash
Peter’s feet and Peter said, ‘No, no, no, please, don’t wash my feet!’
John 13:5–8 And Jesus said, ‘Unless I wash your feet, I have no part of you.’ And
Peter said, ‘Well, in that case wash my whole body!’ And Jesus said,
‘No, I don’t need to wash your whole body. Someone who’s had a
bath is already clean. You only need to have your feet washed.’

So that’s like, when you pray a prayer like I know some of you have
prayed, asking Jesus into your life, and you received total
forgiveness, that’s like your whole body is washed. You don’t need to
have another bath. We don’t need to start again every time we mess
up. But as we go through life we pick up kind of dirt on the way, and
daily we need to receive forgiveness.

And then ‘Please’. Jesus said, ‘Pray, ask for your daily bread.’ In other
words, ask for anything you need. Anything that matters to you
matters to God. Pray for others, yes, but also pray for yourself.
There’s nothing that you’re concerned about which God does not
want to hear about.

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

 Talk Point 5
WHEN SHOULD WE PRAY?

When should we pray? Well, you can pray anywhere, anytime. You
don’t have to go into church to pray; you can pray on the train, on the
Personalise or omit the
bus, pray walking, you can pray in any situation. At night. Sometimes
text in red. when I can’t sleep, I start praying for other people, sort of interceding.
I find that it’s a really good time to do that.

So you can pray anywhere, any time. Jesus talks about praying on your
own. He talks about going into your room and shutting the door. That
just means find somewhere you can be by yourself. For me at the
Replace the text in red
with your own moment, I’m finding walking, just walking in the park early in the
example. morning, is for me a time I love to get away and be by myself.

And then with others. I found this so hard!

P I remember two of my really best friends, Nicky and Sila Lee, who I’ve
Replace with your own
example of the first time
known for so long, we went on holiday just after we’d become
you prayed out loud. The Christians, and we decided we’d try praying together. And we sat in
aim here is for guests to
feel that they aren’t the this room, and it seemed like hours – it was probably about three
only ones feeling nervous
about praying. So it’s
minutes! We each prayed one prayer, and at the end of it, I promise
helpful for your example
to align with how guests
you, my shirt was soaking wet, I was so nervous doing it.
might be feeling rather
than being an overly
positive experience,
which may make them
feel more daunted.

But it’s a wonderful thing to do, because Jesus said: ‘Where two or
three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst.’ There’s a
power in praying together.

Three little tips to end with. First of all, keep it real. Be honest. Be
vulnerable with God. Say what’s on your heart. He doesn’t want to
hear about what you think ought to be in you; he wants to hear what
is really in us.

And then, keep it simple.

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

Q I read this: that the Lord’s Prayer, which is a prayer that Jesus taught
his disciples to pray, is fifty-seven words long. The European Union
Report on the Regulation for the Sale of Cabbage is 26,901 words.
Millions of people pray the Lord’s Prayer every day. Who has read the
report on cabbage?!

And then, keep it up. Prayer is two-way. You know, the main way God
speaks to us is through the Bible – that’s what we’re looking at next
week. But he speaks to us as we pray.

P As I say, I love to pray just walking around Hyde Park in the morning.
And recently I was just walking along, and what I do is I take a piece
Replace with your own of paper and a pen to write down my thoughts. And one time I’d just
example.
gone through a gate, and I’d just got out my pen to write down
something that I sensed God was speaking to me, and there was a
couple there with some dogs. They obviously thought I was a kind of
inspector. So they said, ‘Is anything wrong?’ So I said, ‘No, no, no,
nothing’s wrong.’ He said, ‘Well, what are you writing down?’ So I
said, ‘I’m just writing down my thoughts.’ He said, ‘Did your therapist
tell you to do that?’ I said, ‘No, just when I pray I like to write down
what I sense God is saying to me.’ He said, ‘Does it work?’ So I said,
‘Yeah. Yeah, it works.’

And then he went off and I went off. And it so happened that he was
walking one way and I was walking another, and actually we bumped
into each other again. And so he said, ‘Is it still working?’ So I said,
‘Yeah, it’s still working!’ He said, ‘How often do you do it?’ So I said,
‘I do it every day.’ He said, ‘How long have you been doing it?’ I said,
‘Forty years.’

And I guess that’s my testimony to you tonight: I’ve been doing this
for forty years. I’m not very good at it. You know, I’m no expert. I don’t
think my prayers are great prayers! But what I’ve found is that over
the years we’ve seen people healed. We’ve seen marriages restored,
relationships restored. We’ve seen people set free from addictions.
It’s had a profound effect on my life. It’s had a profound effect on our
marriage. It’s had a profound effect on our family.

Prayer really is the most important activity of our lives – and it works!

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha

The Alpha Transcripts are taken from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel filmed 2014–2015, which are based
on Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel.

© Alpha International 2015

Prepared by:
Alpha International, HTB Brompton Road, London SW7 1JA.
Email: publications@alpha.org
Website: alpha.org

Acknowledgements:
Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version Anglicised
Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society
Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company
All rights reserved
‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica
UK trademark number 1448790.

Prodigal Son sculpture by Charlie Mackesy (charliemackesy.com)

KEY: Personal Story Story Quotes Key Bible Passages

5) Why and How Do I Pray? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha