Dan Arnold's Teachings on Prayer

There are 5 modes of prayer that are most commonly practiced:
I. Praise - Praise is complementing God for who he is.
A. God is worthy of all praise.
B. Through loving God, We experience his love for us.
C. Through praise we begin to place focus on God, and not ourselves.

II. Thanksgiving - Giving thanks to God.
A. Giving thanks to God for what he has done, is doing, and will do.
B. Thanking God for the gifts he has provided. (Family, Friends, Wisdom, etc.

III. Petition - Just ask, while focusing on God’s Character.
A. Request, and believe in God’s power to do what is best in an eternal context.
B. Pray for peace. (Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.)
C. Pray your heart out until you have peace that it is in God’s hands.
Further Notes on Petition:
There is power in joining together in petition, but this does not mean God keeps a score, or weighs a scale with numbers of prayers.
God works out what is needed from an eternal perspective, not a temporal perspective.
We need to be sensitive both to the urgency of the other’s request, and to God’s timing.

IV. Intercession - Intercession is praying on behalf of someone; but more specifically that their relationship with God would be made right.
A. Through intercessory prayer God works on our heart, as much as the other persons.

V. Confession - Can be admitting personal sin, but also a chance for humility before God.
A. "God, I don’t know what to do."
B. Just talk, don’t perform.
C. You can’t pray wrong, if you pray honest.