Simply Praying Simply

For years I have found the acrostic ACTS helpful in praying:

• A – Adoration
• C – Confession
• T – Thanksgiving
• S – Supplication

I was taught it when I was young and it’s stuck with me as a sensible and balanced way to pray. But looking at it now I wonder if it’s a little bit too complicated. How do you teach someone to pray without it sounding like an exercise in advanced theology? Is it right to make it more complicated than it needs to be in order to simply make an acroymn work?

Charlotte, one of our young people here at the church mentioned that the way she was taught to pray was to use “teaspoon”. When she said that I was rather baffled at what she meant but she explained it and it makes great sense and as a bonus is beautifully simple:

Teaspoon – Tsp

• T – Thank you
• S – Sorry
• P – Please

Thank you, sorry, please works very well. As long as the thank you includes a liberal helping of “thank you Jesus for who you are” then it keeps the whole idea manageable and not too daunting for people who are just learning how to pray. One of the great encouragements of this last year has been seeing and hearing people learning to pray and what a privilege to point them to someone who not only loves to hear them but can actually do something about those prayers.

“Prayer is where the action is.” John Wesley