In this 2-week, two-armed randomized controlled trial, the authors investigated an online contemplative prayer program for Christians with daily stress. Drawing from the stress and coping, mindfulness, religious coping, and contemplative literatures, the brief program sought to help Christians with daily stress change their evaluation of environmental demands by surrendering to God’s perceived care. With roots in the contemplative Christian tradition, the Jesus Prayer was practiced both formally and informally for a 2-week period of time. Findings revealed both within- and between-groups differences, with the Jesus Prayer group (n = 44) outperforming a wait-list group (n = 42) on measures of stress and surrender as a form of religious coping. Study limitations and directions for future research are offered in order to continue to build this burgeoning research base on Christian-sensitive interventions for the amelioration of recurrent psychological symptoms.

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Drawing from several bodies of literature (i.e., transdiagnostic, Christian theology, contemplative prayer, mindfulness), the authors developed a Christian-sensitive model for understanding repetitive negative thinking. With structural equation modeling (SEM), we empirically investigated a proposed model of the relationship between Christian college students' views of God's providence, the ability to surrender to God, humble detachment, and repetitive negative thinking. Utilizing The Cloud of Unknowing as a starting point to operationalize a Christian-distinctive model for making sense of Christians' struggle with rumination and worry, our conceptualization provides an alternative to mindfulness meditation as a mechanism through which detachment and inner peace can be cultivated in the midst of perseverative thinking. Among a sample of Christian college students (N ϭ 191), the model was empirically supported, showing that the link between surrender and repetitive negative thinking was explained by efforts to "humbly detach." Future directions for research, along with a manualized treatment approach that has been developed, are discussed.

In the current study, the authors examined the effects of a manualized, preventative program for Christians with repetitive negative thinking (RNT), utilizing Christian meditation as a Christian-sensitive alternative to Buddhist-informed mindfulness meditation. After randomizing participants to a 4-week program or wait-list at two Christian universities, the intervention group received instruction in both kataphatic (using words and images) and apophatic (wordless and imageless) Christian meditation and practiced in a weekly group meeting and on their own. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed several interaction effects (Condition ϫ Time), with the Christian meditation group (n ϭ 36) outperforming the wait-list group (n ϭ 35) on a variety of outcome measures, including experiences of humility and surrendering to God (medium effect sizes), as well as nonattachment and perseverative thinking (large effect sizes). Findings suggest that Christian meditation may hold promise as a daily practice among Christians for the prevention of emotional disorders. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

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