Living ritual: How the Lord’s Prayer shapes liturgy and lives

Abstract

This article explores the Lord’s Prayer as a form of embodied ritual through which practitioners enact the prayer of Jesus with body, mind, and spirit. A common perception of spiritual formation is that it begins with the mind (belief) and only slowly works its way into the body (behavior). Yet, Jesus’s teachings on prayer are not mental instructions (belief), but rather a demonstration of embodied practice (behavior). In this article, the author puts the Lord’s Prayer in conversation with neuroscience research and embodiment practices to unpack how this Lord’s Prayer as a physical practice shapes congregational liturgy and congregants’ spiritual lives.