Centering Prayer for Everyone
With Readings, Instructions, and Programs
for Home and Group Practice
Centering Prayer for Everyone is a concise, accessible guide to Christian contemplative practice. This inclusive handbook explicitly welcomes everyone to these practices whatever their beliefs or doubts, including Christians, meditators from other traditions, twelve step members, and anyone filled with longing for spiritual transformation and connection with God.
This practical guide collects in one volume everything needed to learn five meditative practices:
• centering prayer, a form of silent, wordless meditation;
• lectio divina, a way of listening to a reading with the ear of the heart;
• visio divina, a form of divine seeing in which we contemplate an image with the eye of the heart;
• walking meditation, a method of moving through space while remaining fully present, bringing meditation into action;
• chanting the psalms, a simple practice of singing ancient prayers.
Clearly formatted so that instructions and programs are easy to find at a glance, Centering Prayer for Everyone is designed to inspire beginners to enter the practices immediately and includes detailed instructions for group leaders. Centering Prayer for Everyone includes:
• clear, concise instructions for practice;
• an anthology of readings, both biblical and non-biblical, for lectio divina;
• prayer programs for group practice, including prayers in inclusive language;
• guidelines for sharing in groups;
• detailed instructions for leaders who would like to start and facilitate in person prayer groups, digital groups, and quiet days;
• suggestions for home meditation practice;
• exploration of some of the broader subjects that can help us stay motivated and grounded in our practice, such as deepening our relationship with God and the need for community;
• suggestions for further reading.
There are two chapters specifically on digital groups: "Contemplative Prayer in a Digital Context," a guide for leaders of digital prayer groups, and "Program for a Digital Meeting,” which has specific instructions adapted for use in groups by videoconference.
Watch a two minute video introducing the book.
Listen to Lindsay reading the Introduction to Centering Prayer for Everyone.
Read an interview with Lindsay about Centering Prayer for Everyone.
What a meaningful resource Lindsay Boyer has created in Centering Prayer for Everyone! Lindsay’s skills as a spiritual guide, contemplative teacher and writer are evident on each page.
~ David Frenette, author of The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God
I have been waiting for a book like Lindsay Boyer’s Centering Prayer for Everyone for a long time. There are many excellent books about contemplative prayer but none with the scope and practical guidance that this one includes. For the past decade or so I have been referring seekers to Lindsay’s highly informative website, and now she is offering an entire book with a clear, inclusive voice and even more practical guidance in centering prayer, lectio divina, visio divina, walking meditation, and chanting the Psalms.
~ Dr. Anne Silver, Director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary and author of Trustworthy Connections: Interpersonal Issues in Spiritual Direction
Centering Prayer for Everyone is a little gem, a concise guide to contemplative practice offering all the tools needed to begin and sustain a practice of centering prayer and four other practices—lectio divina, visio divina, walking meditation and chanting the psalms, along with suggestions for home practice and information about the need for silent practice based community.
~ Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler, founding member and former President, Contemplative Outreach
A welcoming and gentle guide into unlocking our longing for silence which is God’s first language and from which the contemplative journey begins - take the first step.
~ Fr Carl J Arico, founding member of Contemplative Outreach and author of A Taste of Silence