What is a Christian? Part One: What Christians do

Hey Gang. Hope you all have had a good beginning of year and are settled into a good rhythm. Clint and I have been working on revamping the blog so that it is a more helpful tool for folks who have questions about Christianity. In order to achieve this, our goal this year is that our discussions be more focused which will allow us to go a bit deeper into the central issues that people grabble with as they engage with the Christian gospel.

So, with that said, the first central issue we are going to concentrate on for the next several weeks is "What is a Christian?" There are a lot of ways to answer that but right now we will start with one of the basic things that Christians do: pray. Very early in his ministry Jesus taught his disciples how to pray and expected that prayer would a fundamental part of being his follower. We see that prayer was a critical part of the early church experience and that the writers of many of the New Testament books integrated personal prayers into their letters to churches. So the question is, why do you suppose this was such an important part of following Jesus? For someone who has questions about Christianity, what does it mean that prayer played(s) such a critical role in following Jesus?