Prayer and service are two sides of the same coin. In prayer we open ourselves up to God, and in service we open ourselves up to others. Prayer provides God with the opportunity to mold us, to form us into the kind of people we ought to be. Service gives others the opportunity to help us grow in our understanding of what it means to be a human being. Service is so central to our faith that Jesus described the Last Judgment in terms of what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:31-46), and James defined religion in terms of caring for orphans and widows (James 1:27). Yet Saint Paul taught us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) because our whole lives should be a prayer. The best approach, then, is to combine our prayer and our service into one great hymn of adoration to God.