How to Integrate Immanuel Prayer Into Other Prayer Settings: Learning to Welcome, Notice, and Name God’s Presence and Guidance in Other Prayer Contexts.
Type: One Time Workshop
Dates: Future Date TBA
Facilitator: Andy Ross with Michael Schaefer
Description: The Immanuel Approach developed primarily by Dr Karl Lehman is an interactive prayer model that is being used around the world to help people experience a deeper level of awareness and interactive connection with God. The Immanuel Approach is built around the assumption that God is actually always fully present with us all the time and has been with us in every moment of our lives. If we are able to feel safe and open to connection enough and to direct our awareness to God’s presence most of us tend to spontaneously become aware of this presence and to interact with God in ways that we previously never realized were possible. Sometimes the interaction is very vivid and visual, and feels subjectively very obvious to the person that they seeing and interacting with Jesus, or God appearing to them in a clear form. Other times the interaction feels more like a subtle flow of sensations, thoughts, feelings, images, etc. People often fear that they are simply making up the thoughts or images that come in which case it is very helpful to be able to name out loud to another person what is coming and see how it keeps unfolding. As people do this and keep asking God/Jesus for help and sharing their feelings with God, the interactive flow tends to lead to peace, unburdening, and opening possibilities which go beyond what our minds had previously able of come up with on their own. This workshop will help clarify what ingredients seem to really help people recognize God’s presence and guidance and how these might be applied in other types of prayer settings beyond ‘official’ Immanuel Approach ministry sessions. The workshop will include some teaching, a demonstration, and a chance for participants who want to practice a very simple exercise. Participants will hopefully leave with an awareness of how easy it can be to move from a one way prayer paradigm of us talking to God to a two way paradigm where we pause and recognize what God is communicating to us right in this moment.
Prerequisites: None
Cost: Free