If you've wanted to pray and didn't know where to start, start here. Five minutes, a quiet place and three words: Come, Holy Spirit.
“When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
Jesus, Matthew 6:6Prayer is talking with God, and giving him room to answer. You don't need the right words or a special place. You need a door you can close and a few minutes you won't be interrupted.
Josh Brake, who leads Breakthrough, didn't grow up with a prayer life that worked. In 2018 he made prayer his word for the year: 30 minutes a day, an hour on Fridays, a timer on his phone. The first months felt like discipline. Then something changed. He started to look forward to it, because he found someone was there.
“Go into your room, close the door. You're like, I don't know what to say. Pray whatever you think. Talk to him.”
Josh BrakeA bedroom, a parked car, your favorite chair. Somewhere you can close a door.
Five minutes, so you're not watching the clock. The one below works.
Feet on the floor, palms facing up. Then say, “Come, Holy Spirit.”
Don't expect anything. You're offering yourself to God, and that's enough.
Next week, try seven minutes. Then nine, then eleven, until twenty or thirty minutes with God feels normal.
Pick a length, press start and put your phone face down. Your screen stays on while it runs, and nothing will ring when it ends.
In Josh's words
Six things from Josh's teaching that make prayer simpler, and lighter, than most of us expect.
“When we're approaching prayer, it's not an activity that we're doing, it's a place that we're going.”From Prayer: The Place We Go (podcast)
“Some of the most beautiful times in prayer I've had have been the times I haven't said one word. I'm just sitting on my couch, just a normal place, and I just wait.”From Devoted to Prayer (Saturday message)
“We always enter prayer holding these things. If you're holding on to other things, you can't receive.”From Devoted to Prayer (Saturday message)
“When I quiet myself, I realize that the presence of the Holy Spirit makes everything so much easier.”From Prayer: The Place We Go (podcast)
“When I reminded myself of his love, my performance became irrelevant, because his love comes to me independent of my performance.”From Prayer: The Place We Go (podcast)
“Prayer isn't so much you convincing God to give. It is more about posturing you to receive.”From Devoted to Prayer (Saturday message)
Listen and watch
Josh's story of making prayer his word for a year, what changed, and the five-minute practice for starting from zero.
Breakthrough Church Podcast. Episode page
How to enter prayer by leaning on the Holy Spirit instead of trying harder, and what to do when you catch yourself performing.
Breakthrough Church Podcast.
Week 4 · October 10, 2026
Devoted to Prayer
The first church spent ten days praying and lining up with God's word before the Spirit came. Josh on why prayer gets you ready to receive.
Watch and read
Still wondering about something? Email josh@bd.church or grab a coffee with us.
That's normal, and it still counts. Josh describes a morning where he sat for ten minutes, said "Come, Holy Spirit," and didn't hear anything. He maybe sensed that God was there, said thank you, opened his Bible and went for a run.
In the first months of praying every day, he says, the time felt like discipline. Around four months in he began to notice someone else in the room with him, and he started to like being with God, not just love him.
Whatever you're thinking. Jesus said to go into your room, close the door and talk to your Father. If you can close a door, you can pray.
Some days Josh prays through a list. Other days he prays a Psalm, reads an old written prayer back to God, or just sits in silence. There isn't one right way.
Start with five minutes and add two each week: seven, then nine, then eleven, until twenty or thirty minutes feels normal.
If you already have a daily rhythm, try one longer time a week. If you usually pray for 30 minutes, give God an hour on a Friday or Saturday and let him lead the second half.
Josh likes the morning because it's the best way to start the day awake to God's love. But the best time is the one you can protect: before the kids wake up, on a lunch break, or in the half hour before your bedtime routine.
Yes. Every Saturday gathering ends with a time of prayer, and anyone can come forward.
If you'd like someone to pray for you this week, you can send us a prayer request.
Jesus' friends watched him slip away to pray and asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray." He gave them the Lord's Prayer, and then told them how much the Father loves to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks. You can read it in Luke 11:1-13.
Answered prayer
Here's one of the stories from a Saturday at Breakthrough. There are more on the stories page.
Next steps
