Basic to Christian faith is the practice of prayer. Prayer is being with God—communicating with him about all the details of your life together. But for many of us, we never get beyond the basics of prayer.
For centuries, the Psalms have been a school for prayer for the people of God. They provide a form and structure for engaging with God about all the events that occur, and emotions we feel, on a daily basis. Often the Psalms are beautiful, but always they are earthy, real, raw. The goal of the Psalms: deepening your life with God in community with others.
Of the 150 Psalms, a group of 15 (Psalms 120-134) were crafted and arranged together as the Psalms of Ascent. They were songs and prayers for making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This summer—as many of us come and go to and from New England—we want to invigorate our prayer lives as a church, by learning to pray the Psalms of Ascent.