Praying the gospel

Back in April at the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago, Terri and I attended a breakout session on prayer led by Scotty Smith, pastor to such notable Christian musicians as Stephen Curtis Chapman and Michael Card. Scotty embodies what we've been after here at Trinity in recent years - moving in an ever more gospel-driven, Cross-centered direction in which our sin humbles us and Christ's grace gives us hope. The gospel, we've been discovering, isn't merely the way into the Christian life - it was meant to define all of it.

A few years ago, Scotty began preaching the gospel to himself each morning as he started his day by writing out a Christ-centered prayer based on the portion of Scripture he was reading that day. He began using some of these prayers as a means to help his friends - emailing them out daily. Today, Scotty's gospel prayers have become a blog hosted at The Gospel Coalition website and are available for all of us to read daily. You can access it here.

Baker Books has also just released a compilation of Scotty's gospel prayers in book form. It's called simply Everyday Prayers. Whether through the blog or his book, I highly recommend Scotty Smith's biblical prayers as a means of stirring up hope in the Cross each day.