Prayer
Prayer: Communication with God in the name of Jesus Christ. “And they were constantly devoting themselves to… prayer” (Acts 2:42).
Luke actually says that the early Jerusalem church devoted themselves to “the prayers,” not to the general practice of prayer. These prayers may refer to the manner in which the early Christians continued to observe the set Jewish hours of prayer (Acts 3:1). They may also refer to the early church’s own appointed times for prayer. The early church adopted the custom of offering prayers in both the morning and evening, a practice held in high regard by Christians for centuries to follow.
Certainly the early Christian observed private as well as corporate times of prayer (Acts 10:9), but there is ample evidence that the church gathered to pray in unison on specific occasions (Acts 4:24-31; 12:5).
The Didache calls for Christians to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, perhaps corresponding to the set times for Jewish prayer observed by the first-century church. But there is no evidence that the early prayer practice of the second-century was relegated to a specific chant.
Prayer in the spontaneous life of the early church followed a consistent pattern, involving address to God, praise of God’s mighty acts, thanksgiving, petition, and doxology, but still remained spontaneous and free from patterned recitation.
The A.C.T.S. (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) method so popular today can actually be traced back to mid-third century from the great theologian Origen (On Prayer).