Most pastors work hard. We try to be competent at many things. We go to hospitals to care for those whose bodies, and perhaps spirits, are broken.
We counsel church members who wonder what strange thing God is doing in their lives. We spend hours in meetings, trying our best to guide the church, supervise staff, balance budgets, and raise money.
Then there is the sermon. Our church has a pulpit that's two stories tall. Guess what's considered important in our tradition? It's an overwhelming responsibility to climb those steps Sunday after Sunday and utter, "Hear the Word of the Lord." I work on the sermon every morning, and I still go to bed every Saturday night fretting that I have not worked hard enough.
Facing my twentieth anniversary in the pastorate, I have about decided that none of this is the most important thing I do. Not even the preaching. These days, I'm thinking that the most important thing I do for my congregation is to pray. Specifically, leading prayer in worship.
When I pray for the church, I place it back in God's hands. Now, what else was I going to do this week that was more powerful than that? But I am ashamed to admit that most weeks I spend a whole lot more time doing everything else. I've started to wonder if I am taking my prayers for the congregation seriously enough. You sure couldn't tell it by my preparation.
The choir has spent hours and hours rehearsing the anthems. The janitors and altar guild have groomed the sanctuary. It takes a small committee in our church just to get the bulletin right. Even the florist has spent hours on the flowers. But when it comes to the prayers in worship, I was just hammering them out Saturday night, in the time that was left over after my sermon preparation.
Whether one reads written prayers or prays "from the heart" is really beside the point. Some ministers preach from manuscripts and some don't take a note into the pulpit. But I don't know anyone who steps up to preach unprepared, hoping God will provide something to say at the moment. No, we knock ourselves out parsing verbs and studying commentaries so we can honor God as faithful expositors of his Word. But the sermon is only part of the sacred conversation. These days, I'm trying to be just as faithful in voicing the words of the people to God.
By leading prayer in worship, my job is simply to keep the conversation going between the people and their only Savior. That means the people must recognize themselves in these prayers. When the prayer is done, they need to be thinking, Yes, that is what I wanted to tell God, but I didn't know how to say it.
Only as we tell the truth about ourselves are we made ready to hear the even deeper truth of God's Word. Conversely, after hearing God's truth, we are compelled to respond and tell him even more. So by the end of the hour, we leave believing that we have not just listened and watched but actually communed with the Sacred One.
Prayer hurts
Gregory the Great left the refuge of the monastery to help bring spiritual renewal to the church in sixth-century Rome. Eventually he became one of the greatest popes the church has known.
Gregory taught that prayer is always a journey from humility in misery to humility in gratitude.
We begin by telling the humble truth that our lives are wracked by sin, disease, confusion, and deep spiritual loneliness, he said. Sometimes we bring the world with us into these prayers, for it is but an illustration of the misery in our hearts, now writ large. Gregory claimed that as we focus on these prayers, feeling all the pangs and compunction of the things we have done and the things we have left undone, the Holy Spirit lifts us above our distress to encounter the grace of God. If we are paying attention as we pray, we are overwhelmed by this mercy. Thus, we are led into humility in gratitude.
I have wondered if that happens in my parishioners' hearts when I pray. For a while, I worried too much about what my parishioners were thinking during prayer. I have given that worry back to the Spirit, where it belongs. Now I think more about what is going on in me as I pray. Am I really telling the truth? If I am, it ought to break my heart. Am I open to the activity of the Holy Spirit? If I am, I will always be drawn back to the grace of Jesus Christ. When that happens, I leave worship so thankful. So will my parishioners if they have truly joined me in prayer.
Prayer helps
There is no shortage of teachers for any worship leader who wants to learn how to pray. Fortunately, the Protestant church is developing the humility to learn from the centuries of monastic and mystical spirituality that preceded us. In more recent years, Pietist and renewal authors have also written eloquently about the dynamics and theology of prayer.
Here are a few of the borrowed insights I have employed in public prayer:
Use silence to tell the truth. We live in a world of half-truths and secrets. I assume that when people come into worship, this is the first opportunity they have had all week to be honest. Some of them may not be good at that. The pastor is called to help them.
In our church, we always include a written prayer of confession, which is followed by a time of silent prayer. The power of that silence amazes me. It is hard for the pastor to keep from breaking silence too early. With all those people telling the truth, I feel as if we have wandered into the Holy of Holies and may get creamed for our offenses. When we can't stand it anymore, the pastor announces the Declaration of Pardon: "In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven." That is such good news, the congregation has to jump to its feet and sing a song of gratitude.
Name names. I have learned the importance of naming people specifically. Some of these are in grief. Some are in the thick of their battle with terrible diseases. Some are thrilled because they just had a baby or celebrated a fiftieth anniversary. All of them have come to church to tell God the truth about their joys and concerns.
In medium to large churches, many of those in the congregation don't know the people named in the prayers. And I am sure I have always forgotten somebody. But that can't prevent us making the pastoral prayers real and specific. We are not praying abstractions. We are praying for flesh and blood people who are searching for the God who is searching for them. I've been doing this for many years. No one has ever said that they were offended that I prayed for them in public. To the contrary, they are always grateful.
Pray their gratitude. We sometimes focus our prayers on gratitude. I often include a time for people to pray in silence. Afterward I lead them in a prayer of thanksgiving for all of life's blessings. I have found it most helpful to place this prayer after a sermon that has called people to live their whole lives as an expression of gratitude for all the grace they have received. I'm struck by how frequently our people ask for this element in worship. They seem to know that we were created for this purpose, and they miss it when we do not express thanks often enough.
Gratitude may be the measure of our spirituality. I often tell the congregation that their gratitude, more than anything else, will make them distinctive. They are about to return to a world that is obsessed with achieving more and more. But in worship we learn to receive what we really need—grace. You can't earn grace. You can only receive it, and be thankful.
Pray Scripture. Some of the passages of the Bible seem to have been written as an outline for prayer. I like to pray through a Scripture text, weaving in our petitions and praises. This has the obvious benefit of using words that were already inspired by the Holy Spirit. What can I write that could possibly provide a better means for helping people approach their God?
The Psalms are particularly helpful guides for public prayer. (See on page 52 the pastoral prayer drawn from Psalm 23.) So are the writings of the prophets and even some of the rich theological statements of the apostles.
Commission everyone. Like most churches we regularly pray for our missionaries. We pray for church leaders and political leaders. But everyone has a calling, and it is important that we find some way to lay hands upon those with "secular" vocations. We try to commission almost everyone in the course of the year.
In September, when we bring our Sunday school teachers into the chancel, we also ask all the teachers to stand who serve God in public and private schools, colleges, and preschools. Then we pray that all of them will find the presence of Christ in their classrooms in the year ahead.
If I am preaching from one of the healing texts, we will do the same thing for those in the medical professions. There are enough biblical texts about people in their workplaces to lead naturally to prayers for most every vocation from homemakers to lawmakers. There are even texts for attorneys. Really.
The benefit of these commissioning prayers is that they build a bridge from the workplace, where our people spend most of their time, to the place where for one hour each week they search for God's calling. If we pray only for those with church jobs, we imply that they have to serve on a committee to be worthy of our prayers.
Prayer heals
One final word about the growing edge of my own public prayers. In recent years, I've noticed that the theme of surrender has been emerging. I'm not sure why, but I am sure it is more present in my public prayer life than in any other part of my ministry. So I take it seriously as a pastoral issue.
Most people are struggling with something. Some are struggling with relationships, others are struggling to find a job they will love. Every congregation has a few people who are struggling just to stay alive. Typically even the pastor has a struggle. Maybe it's about being the pastor.
Prayer is a safe place where we can surrender the struggle. If worship is supposed to renew our identity as a people who follow the Savior, then prayer in worship reminds us just how much we need this Savior. (And sometimes we don't know his resurrection power until we give up trying to avoid the cross.)
So in worship, I pray that those who are determined to save a marriage would give it back to Jesus. I pray that others would give God the dream they think they deserve. I even pray that those who are fighting their way through cancer would find the courage to go ahead and die—today. Because it is only as we give our relationships, our dreams, and our very lives to the Savior that we will find any peace. It all belongs to him anyway. We own nothing. And what we deserve is actually the last thing we want from God. That may be the hardest truth we tell in prayer.
The sermon proclaims the grace of Christ. The music and the sacraments help us perceive that gift. I've even heard announcements given so that they conveyed grace. But we dare not minimize the ways in which pastoral prayer allows parched souls to draw this living water.
M. Craig Barnes is pastor of The National Presbyterian Church.
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
