Our Father in Heaven

'Our Father in heaven...'

Of course, life isn’t about money, status, influence, or possessions. It’s about the relationships that make us. And it’s about relationships because of who and how God is.

'Our Father in heaven...'

To pray is to relate. With these four words, we enter into Christian prayer. With these four words, we state who we are and, most importantly, who God is.

These are the most regularly spoken words every day throughout the world in over 7,000 languages, in over 190 countries, across prisons and palaces, on ships and down mines, by children learning how to speak and those taking their final breath.

And whether amongst thousands, or alone, we begin this family prayer, the prayer Jesus put on our lips, the same way, ‘our Father’.

This is not ‘my’, but ‘our’. This is a relationship we share. We are not alone – but part of a family. We might be on our own, but we are not solitary – we are part of a family, a people who share the same origin, the same blood line.

We don't address a 'great unknown divine being', but 'Father'. We dare to name Him as Father because we are bound to Jesus. We are invited into the relationship He has always had with the Father.

We say 'our' because it puts us alongside our brothers and sisters.

We say 'Father' because it names the relationship.

And we state 'in heaven' because prayer is effective because God is divine.

As we start Thy Kingdom Come 2025 we name those five friends and family who aren't yet able to pray this prayer as their own. But we lift them to our Father so that one day soon, soon, Jesus might put this prayer on their lips and this relationship would remake them.

Pray for Five:

Name the five people you are praying for to come to know the love of God, our Father in heaven.

By The Reverend Canon Chris Russell, Vicar of St Dionis, Parsons Green and the Archbishop of Canterbury's former adviser for evangelism and witness, Church of England