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At Bridgeton Life Church in Glasgow, where we worship, a group of us meet every Thursday night for prayer. We pray for each other, we pray for our families, we pray for the community (both local and beyond), and we pray for the sick, the depressed, the downtrodden and downhearted.

And it's effective. We see lives changed, families restored and the sick healed. Most recently one of our group, Desmond (name changed for confidentiality) shared how a work colleague, Ian (another assumed name) was troubled. Although not a believer himself, Ian saw something in Desmond's life that he wanted. In fact, the guy didn't even like Desmond and had a long history of animosity towards him. Nevertheless, Ian recognised in Desmond a man of integrity who lived what he professed, and Ian now found himself in a time of need. His wife was ill with multiple tumours on her face for which the doctors seemed unable to do anything and he approached Desmond to ask that our church would pray for her.

As we often do, some prayers were allocated that night and it fell on me to pray for Ian and his wife. So I did, and when we met again the following Thursday Desmond reported that she was well. The tumours had disappeared.

As you might suppose, Ian and his wife were not only amazed but overjoyed but, while we certainly shared in their joy, to us this was no more than we expected. Because prayer works, we know that it works, we've seen it work and, moreover, we expect it to work. Over the years I've seen some pretty dramatic answers to prayer, from the speedy recovery of the gravely ill or even dead, to the more gradual recovery of chronic conditions.

So, why do more Christians not pray? And why do those that do not see such dramatic results more often?

I suspect it's because most people, including most Christians, have a deeply skewed concept of what prayer actually is. Most seem to see it as hard work': something difficult that only super-Christians do: something not really for them.

Of course, at Bridgeton Life Church we know that that's not true. We believe that not only is prayer not hard work but is actually easy; as easy as breathing and just as essential. For us prayer is no mere ritual or some onerous religious obligation but a pleasure; an opportunity for intimate communion with our heavenly Father.

Such has long been the experience of my wife Deborah and me. That far from being just an opportunity to tell God a list of things he already knows, real prayer is yet another chance for us to

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