A Christian prayer app for praying with a small group

Ordo is a Christian prayer app for small groups on iPhone. It offers a breath prayer (the Jesus Prayer or Psalm 46, paced to your breathing), the Daily Office, and a shared daily rhythm of scripture, written reflection and check-in. Your group’s reflections are revealed together once everyone has written.

Prayer is easier to keep with others

Most Christians want to pray more than they do. The difficulty is rarely knowing how. It is the ordinary distraction of a full day, and the quiet discouragement of praying alone and not knowing whether anyone else is trying too. The church has long answered this with set forms of prayer, prayed at set times, alongside other people. Ordo is built on that answer.

What to look for in a Christian prayer app

• Prayers with roots. Forms the church has prayed for centuries carry you on days when your own words run out.
• Scripture alongside prayer. Prayer that responds to the day’s reading tends to be less self-absorbed.
• A pace that slows you down. An app that hurries you from one thing to the next works against prayer.
• Company. Knowing a few others are praying the same readings changes how you pray them.
• Quiet. No streaks, badges or notifications competing for attention.

How Ordo works as a prayer app

1. Write a rule of prayer together. Prayer is one of the six parts of a group’s rule of life in Ordo, alongside scripture, reflection, absence, accountability areas and review.
2. Pray the Daily Office. Groups that keep set hours of prayer can pray the Daily Office in the app.
3. Breathe with me. When you need stillness, your companion breathes slowly: four counts in, a rest, six counts out. The words of the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”) or Psalm 46 (“Be still, and know that I am God”) appear with each breath. See the guide to breath prayer and the Jesus Prayer.
4. Respond to scripture. Each day you read the scripture and write a response. Many people write it as a prayer.
5. Check in, then see one another. When everyone has kept the day, the group’s reflections open at once. It becomes natural to pray for each person by name.

Who it is for

Ordo’s prayers come from the common inheritance of the church. Anglicans and Lutherans will know the Daily Office. Orthodox Christians will know the Jesus Prayer from the Hesychast tradition, and Catholics from its wide use in the West. Reformed and Presbyterian Christians often pray the Psalms, and Psalm 46 sits naturally there. Pentecostal, Baptist and non-denominational Christians who have mostly prayed extemporaneously sometimes find set prayer a relief on dry days. Ordo is for groups of friends, prayer partners, small groups and congregations’ prayer circles of a few people.

For praying through the seasons, see Ordo as a liturgical calendar app. For prayer rooted in close reading of scripture, see the Bible reflection app page, and the guide to lectio divina.

How Ordo differs

Many prayer apps are libraries: thousands of prayers, audio tracks or guided sessions to choose from. Ordo is smaller on purpose. It gives you a few ancient forms and a daily rhythm, and it puts them in the context of a group that is keeping the same rule.

There are no streaks or badges. Your companion creature keeps watch while the day still asks something of you and rests once it is kept. Ordo follows the church year, so prompts and readings change with the seasons. It is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist.