Prayer, the Great Adventure is by David Jeremiah, published by Multnomah in June 1997. It runs 263 pages and won a Gold Medallion award.
One correction up front. An earlier version of this review claimed the book’s main themes were male friendship, brotherhood, and accountability among men. That was wrong. This is a book about prayer, built around the Lord’s Prayer, written for any Christian. It is not a men’s ministry resource and it does not organize itself around brotherhood.
What the book actually does
Jeremiah takes the Lord’s Prayer and uses it as the structure for the whole book, working through it phrase by phrase as a pattern for how to pray. That is the spine. Around it he deals with the obstacles most people hit: not knowing what to say, praying and hearing nothing back, losing the habit, and wondering whether any of it changes anything.
He also writes about answers to prayer that people miss because they were not the answer being asked for. That section is the more honest part of the book, and he uses his own experience rather than only success stories.
Jeremiah’s approach
He preaches on the page. Sentences are short, points are numbered, illustrations are frequent. If you have heard him on the radio you already know the cadence. It makes the book easy to follow and occasionally repetitive, since he restates a point after illustrating it.
He is theologically conservative and stays close to the text he is teaching. There is no speculation here and no promise that a technique will produce results.
Readability and use in groups
Accessible to anyone. No Greek, no technical vocabulary, nothing requiring background. It is long enough at 263 pages that a group will want to split it across several weeks. The Lord’s Prayer structure makes it easy to divide, since each phrase is a natural stopping point.
Who it suits
Good for someone whose prayer life has stalled or never really started, and good for a reader who wants a framework rather than inspiration. Also a reasonable choice for a men’s group, though not because the book is aimed at men. It simply works for a group.
Skip it if you already pray consistently and want depth on a harder question, or if you find preacherly writing tiring. This is a 1997 book by a broadcast pastor and it reads like one.
Bottom line
A clear, warm, practical book on prayer organized around the model Jesus gave. Nearly thirty years old and still useful, because the obstacles to prayer have not changed.
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