The Church of England’s pray one for me intercessory prayer site : a virtual cathedral?

Over the past decade there has been a growing number of studies examining the prayer content of people’s personal prayers left in intercessory church-related contexts. Since 2012, these studies have extended to include the cathedral intercessory prayer board and the online intercessory prayer site. Both ‘the cathedral’ and ‘the online site’ are distinctive contexts for intercessory prayer in terms of their openness and accessibility for a broad range of people, who are allowed to enter and use these prayer facilities. What is not known, however, is whether the cathedral prayer board and the online site are functioning in similar ways. This study presents an analysis of 500 prayers posted on the Church of England’s ‘Pray One for Me’ (POFM) website over a period of six months in 2012. The analysis employs the ap Siôn Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer (apSAFIP), which distinguishes among prayer intention, prayer reference, and prayer objective. The results of the analysis are compared with the results from recent cathedral studies employing the same analytic tool, and it is concluded that these two prayer contexts are functioning differently

Such faith

Drawing on Luke 7: 1–10 (The Centurion's Slave), this study offers an example of ‘standing theology’ reflecting on the complexity of faith and the relationships inspired by faith within the distinctive sacred space of cathedral and church buildings. The occasion was the united service of the Bro Tysilio Ministry Area, at St Mary's Church, Pentraeth, on the last Sunday in May

Prayer requests in an English cathedral, and a new analytic framework for intercessory prayer

A small but growing body of international research has begun to explore the rich resource of intercessory prayers posted on the prayer boards in churches, cathedrals and hospital chapels for illuminating the religious and spiritual quests of ordinary men, women, and young people whose sense of the transcendence has been enriched by these buildings. However, the integration of findings from these international studies has been frustrated by the absence of a recognised analytic framework through which the data have been analysed or by the means of which rigorous replication studies could be presented. It is within this context and in response to these issues that the ap Siôn Analytic Framework for intercessory Prayer (apSAFIP) was developed and tested

Seeing how we see each other : learning from quantitative research among young people in the UK

The quantitative strand of the Young People’s Attitudes towards Religious Diversity Project, conducted by the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, set out to capture data from over 2,000 students living in each of the four nations of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) and from London as a special case. Anonymity and confidentiality were assured. In total, nearly 12,000 students submitted thoroughly completed questionnaires. The project concentrated on schools within the state-maintained sector, but sought to obtain roughly equal numbers of students within each of the five areas attending schools with a religious character and without a religious foundation. The aim of the present paper is to collate, present and assess the findings from this survey that are relevant to the theme of this Special Issue, concerned with examining how a religion shapes the way of seeing the world and seeing other religious traditions. Highlights from the research include: students who are themselves religiously motivated hold more positive attitudes towards religious diversity; there is no evidence that schools with a religious character produce students who are less accepting of people from other religious faiths; religious education does work in the sense of leading to attitudes that promote community cohesion, lessen religious conflict, and promote the common good

Ordinary prayer and the activity of God : reading a cathedral prayer board

Ordinary theology' characterizes the reflective God-talk of the great majority of churchgoers, and others who remain largely untouched by the assumptions, concepts and arguments that academic theology takes for granted. Astley coined the phrase in his innovative study, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology, arguing that 'speaking statistically ordinary theology is the theology of God's Church'. Exploring Ordinary Theology presents fresh contributions from a wide range of authors, who address the theological, empirical and practical dimensions of this central feature of

Prayers from the inner city : listening to the prayer board in Southwark cathedral

Although there are numerous empirical studies of the practice of prayer among ordinary people, there have been far fewer empirical studies exploring the content of personal prayer and the influence of location and situation on what people pray. The ap Siôn Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer (apSAFIP) model was developed to enable multiple studies to be conducted within different church-related contexts with a view to addressing this issue. This study presents an analysis of 958 prayer requests posted on the prayer board of Southwark Cathedral in London, UK, using the apSAFIP model which distinguishes among prayer intention, prayer reference and prayer objective. The results are compared with other cathedral prayer studies that have employed the same analytic tool, using ‘ordinary theology’ as an interpretative lens

Ministry of the cathedral prayer-board

In the past decade, cathedrals have blossomed as signs of growth for the Anglican Church in England and Wales. They have opened their doors to growing congregations, to widening participation at the major Christian festivals, and to visitors, pilgrims, and tourists on a changing quest for religious experience and for spiritual fulfilment. In this thought-provoking volume Leslie J. Francis' research group presents ten focused empirical studies that illuminate what is really going on in these cathedral

Looking for signs of the presence of God in Northern Ireland : religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form pupils

A sample of 2,359 sixth-form pupils (between the ages of 16 and 18 years) in Northern Ireland (1,093 attending seven Protestant schools and 1,266 attending nine Catholic schools) responded in 1998 to Greer's classic question 'Have you ever had an experience of God, for example, his presence or his help or anything else?' Religious experience was reported by 29% of Protestant males, 29% of Catholic males, 39% of Protestant females and 38% of Catholic females. Compared with earlier data these figures reveal a particularly marked decline in reported religious experience among Catholic females (64% in 1981, 56% in 1984, 61% in 1992 and 38% in 1998). The content of the reported religious experience is analysed and illustrated within nine descriptive categories characterised as: help and guidance, exams, God's presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, difficulty in describing, and miscellaneous

Creating a place of prayer for the ‘other’ : a comparative case study in Wales exploring the effects of re-shaping congregational space in an Anglican cathedral

Provision of spaces for personal prayer and reflection has become a common phenomenon within historic churches and cathedrals in England and Wales, offering an example of devotional activity that operates largely outside that of traditional gathered congregations, but also in relationship with them. Over the past decade, the apSAFIP (the ap Siôn Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer) has been employed to examine the content of personal prayer requests left in various church-related locations, mapping similarities and differences in pray-ers’ concerns. Building on this research tradition, the present study examines whether changes to physical environment in an Anglican cathedral in Wales has an effect on the personal prayer activity occurring within it, with a particular focus on intercessory prayer requests

Religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form students in Northern Ireland : looking for signs of the presence of God

John Greer conducted major surveys of sixth-form religion in Protestant schools in Northern Ireland in 1968, 1978, and 1988. John Greer’s colleagues continued that research tradition in Northern Ireland in 1998 and in 2010, and extended the survey to include sixth-form students in Catholic schools. Greer’s survey routinely included a question on religious experience, drawing on the approach of Alister Hardy and the Religious Experience Research Unit. The 2010 survey provided the data from around 1,500 sixth-form students analysed in the present paper. These new data offer two main points of contrast, between students in Catholic and in Protestant schools, and between students in 1998 and 2010. The analysis preserves Greer’s historic descriptive categories of religious experience styled: help and guidance, exams, God’s presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, miscellaneous, and difficulty in describing