ABSTRACT
This thesis describes a project to lead the members of Tachikawa Church of Christ to learn and experience the power and blessings of praying the Lord’s Prayer for spiritual edification and maturity. The program consisted of eight weeks of learning the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer and doing spiritual exercises. To provide a theological foundation for this project, I delivered eight sermons on the Lord’s Prayer with strong emphasis on the relational nature of the prayer.
Those who engaged in the spiritual exercises were given opportunities to experience joy, peace, and correction as they tried to live in harmony with the prayer. The prayer proved to be informative as well as transformative. The participants who made the prayer their own daily prayer felt closer to God and received direction to live with him and for him. There is a danger in making the Lord’s Prayer a rote prayer, but being able to pray the Lord’s Prayer as one’s own prayer makes it a spiritual treasure. Japan is a busy and stressful society. It is like a spiritual desert. Acquiring the disciplines of relying on the Lord’s Prayer can function to create a spiritual oasis wherever one is, even on a crowded commuter train in Tokyo
