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August 3, 2014 4:00 pm

6 ways to avoid doing the intercessions

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by    in Liturgy,Prayer

Church services usually include times of prayer, where someone will come to the front and make a few petitions. In liturgical settings, there will be a call and response such as “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer”; in more charismatic settings, there will simply be shouts of “Amen!” coming from the congregation.

These prayers of thanksgiving and of petition for the world can be more formulaic than liturgy. Some churches recommend that they follow a pattern: pray for the world, for the church, for potential mission partners, for the Queen, for local leaders, etc. While such guidance is useful, it can lead to intercessions becoming a checklist.

intercessions

Background photo: Ben Harris, reused under CC license

When it turns into something that has to be “done”, it also turns, for the congregation, as something that has to be gone through. The perverse effect can be that, on top of making intercessory prayer something deeply unattractive, “doing” the intercessions will mean, for some in the congregation and maybe even for the person doing them, that chore is done for the week ahead.

I believe intercessory prayer is something deeply personal, because it must come from the heart.

So, should we stop having a time for intercessions at church? By no means! But rather than “doing” intercessions, whoever’s in charge should lead the congregation into intercessory prayer. This means:

  • being aware of this. When you’re leading the intercessions, you’re not in charge of interceding on behalf of the whole church. If there are bits you forget, then it’s not the end of the world.
  • slowing down. Prayer is not an exercise in wordiness (nor is it one in brevity). But by slowing down, you are giving the congregation the opportunity to take in the prayer and make it their own.
  • not being afraid of silence. In pauses, people can think of specific situations or people that they wish to pray for personally.
  • being explicit about the congregation’s role. This can be done through more or less explicit instructions (“As we call to mind …”), through the use of call and response, etc.
  • prayerful preparation. We do not know how to pray as we ought – that’s a given. And rambling prayers are good prayers, but they’re unlikely to lead others into prayer.
  • realising that there is a movement in intercessory prayer. Particularly, if intercessory prayer is an alignment of our will with God’s will, then contemplating God at the start explicitly can help.

If you’re not called to lead intercession (and if you are, too!), I’d also like to encourage you to re-read these points: when the leader should give opportunities, you should take them. Maybe, even if someone is doing the intercessions rather than leading you into them, you can then still participate.

Stop doing the intercessions. Start leading people into intercession.

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February 9, 2014 10:19 pm

How the Lord’s prayer is more than one line long

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by    in Prayer

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven”

Matthew 6:10

This line of the Lord’s prayer is generally taken one of two ways:

  • it can be discarded as an introduction, much in the same way that the introductory verses to the Epistles are often left alone. That attitude is likely to lead to a “vending machine” approach to prayer.
  • it can be signposted all over our prayers: “we ask for this, but only if that’s in your plans”. When we do so, we are hedging our bets, and refusing to believe in the power of our prayer, or even that it would be accepted without that addendum.

will

The second attitude leads to another issue, however: it restricts what we pray for. I have been to many prayer meetings where all the prayers were either for specific people to come to Christ or for conditions in which people can come to Christ. Something like this:

“Dear Lord, help my brother to just, Lord, get back on his feet and, Lord, just have the strength to keep on sharing your word, Father, Amen”.

Admittedly, the trait is a bit forced. But these prayers sound to me like we’re trying to justify to God why he should listen to our prayers, because after all it’s in his benefit. Hardly the sign of a contrite heart. Worse, if it is done as part of corporate prayer, it can be a case of holier-than-thou prayeritis: “I don’t know about you, but I‘ve got the advancement of the Kingdom as my number one priority, so that’s all I’m going to pray for”. Hardly appropriate, especially given the context in which the Lord’s prayer was given to us.

But of course, corporate prayer develops its own culture. So individuals can hardly be blamed for such prayers if they are the norm. Equally, though, this highlights another issue with placing our prayers firmly within God’s will: it will stop others from praying for health, peace, or other things which appear unrelated with holy purposes.

It’s like a child who, having worked out that their parents wanted good education for him, would only ever ask for textbooks, and when fancying a bit of chocolate, would say “Please can I have some chocolate so I have magnesium to help my study”, or not say it at all. Ridiculous.

Naturally, aligning our own wills with God’s is a good thing to do. Discerning, and wanting His purpose is good – there is no doubt about that. And there is good reason to pray for people to come to faith – but no good reason for such prayers to be the only prayers said in meetings, or even for them to dominate them.

Ultimately, this line of the Lord’s prayer as a framing statement, a way to express our submission to our heavenly Father. As such, it tints every subsequent prayer – and rightly so. But not in terms of what we pray for – rather, in terms of the attitude with which we approach the throne.

So help your brothers and sisters to realise that everything can be prayed for. Next time, deliberately pray for things which aren’t directly related to people coming to Christ.

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June 23, 2013 4:25 pm

Size doesn’t matter

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by    in Prayer

Seriously. At least in terms of prayer.

size

Photo: Scott Akerman, re-used under CC license.

Long prayers are not more powerful than short ones.

I’ve heard prayers that sound like an auction, with as much as possible crammed into them. Tons of words, no breathing space, and oh so much mumbling. I don’t think that’s what Paul had in mind when he talked about groanings.

If you’re trying to make your prayer longer, you will be likely to repeat yourself, to forget who you’re praying to and therefore repeat it every other second. Worse, you are likely to switch who you’re praying to, from a simple “Father” at the start of your prayer to a “Lord Jesus” in the middle, to finish with  a hesitation between “In Your name” and “In the name of Your Son”.

Remember: whether to the Son or to the Father you are praying to a God who knows you intimately and who does not need you to justify your prayers. Being thorough in your prayers is not necessary.

Short prayers are not better than long prayers

Being concise is neither a sign of holiness, nor a sign of a Spirit-inspired prayer.

God is alive. The Spirit is alive. If you’re afraid that your prayers will go on for too long, and deny the Spirit a breathing space (pun intended), you may not allow yourself to be transformed by prayer. You may end up simply going through the motions of liturgical prayer without meaning any of it, because these prayers have been crafted through the ages and better than anything you could produce. Or you may end up not praying at all, because prayer becomes a perilous exercise in brevity and precision.

Remember: God is eternal. He has all the  time to hear and listen to your prayers, so don’t rush it!

Silence is okay, too

Prayer meetings have a tendency to bring pressure onto individuals to pray out loud. If in a meeting there’s, say, five prayer topics, and by the end of the fourth round, all I’ve said is “Amen”, it feels like I ought to say something.

But if I say something for the sake of saying something; if, to phrase it differently, my spoken prayer is directed to the people around me rather than to God, I might as well not say anything.

Remember: We are instructed to be slow to speak and quick to listen.

So what’s the score?

Long or short or silent/contemplative, all prayer is good, and no type is better than the other! If you’re praying long prayers to look holy, stop! If you’re praying short prayers to look intellectual enough to make them concise, stop! For your own sake.

But. If everyone in your prayer meeting tends to pray long prayers, it is likely that your short prayers will stand out. The converse also holds. If your prayers stand out, it is likely (though by no means automatic) that you are continuing to do them out of misplaced pride; and it is likely (though again by no means automatic) that it disrupts your friends’ prayer by being surprising.

So… adapt. For their sake. And maybe for your own, as you may find you like a new approach to prayer. But not out of a misplaced notion that one type of prayer is more effective than the other.

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January 13, 2013 5:13 pm

God of the small things

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by    in Prayer

The story is famous: when Elijah went looking for God, he searched for him in the grandiose, in the mighty, in the massive. But he didn’t find him there – instead, he found it in the still small voice. One way to read this is to realise that, for instance, our busyness or our worries stops us from hearing God. Yet there is a lot more to the “still, small voice” than this.

smallthings

Photo: adapted from Joe Lencioni, under CC License

The story also depicts us and our own expectations: it describes how we think God will show up in great and marvellous ways; and forget that he also shows up in the mundane. Ignoring God’s presence and action in the everyday life, may be just down to our desire to retain control over the mundane:

  • in remembering the miraculous (that Jesus fed the multitude with barely anything), we find an excuse to forget the example that is set (for instance, that people were fed and welcomed. Or that the start of it was food belonging to the disciples, not conjured up out of thin air.
  • in looking at the big miracles first – and yes, that includes the resurrection – we allow ourselves to box Jesus into someone who concerns himself only with the big issues. Jesus performed miracles, yes. But that is far from being his predominant activity over his three-and-a-bit-year ministry.
  • in thinking in terms of salvation first – whether it be issues of soteriology, eschatology or predestination – we shockingly allow ourselves to make Jesus irrelevant to our day-to-day lives.

The truth is far more beautiful: God is relevant to our lives: as a model to follow, someone to imitate, yes. But also, and just as importantly, God is a constant presence in our lives: someone who cares about the mundane and acts in the little things as well as the big.

I think it’s important to remind ourselves that our prayers should not be limited to the supernatural, the unexpected. I myself have a tendency to push prayer to the extreme:  to ask beyond my expectations of what might actually happen. And there is a place for such bold prayers. But not all prayers should be reaching for what we couldn’t do ourselves.

Because I’m afraid that if we do limit our prayers to what we couldn’t do ourselves, we quickly reach a stage where we feel we have to sort ourselves out before we can come before God. And then, those areas of our lives that most need healing, we cut off from the one person who can heal them.

When’s the last time you prayed for the natural rather than the supernatural?

Have you ever felt your situation did not merit God’s attention?

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November 25, 2012 5:01 pm

Pray for your pastor

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by    in Calling,Lists,Prayer

As you will know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I delivered my first sermon last Sunday. I am incredibly grateful to all who prayed for me on that occasion; and I’ll reiterate that it went really well.

Photo taken from christmasstockimages.com, reused under CC License

Up until last week, whenever I read or heard “pray for your pastor”, I would never think much of it. I’m not sure what my excuses were; but I think that deep down I was thinking a combination of the following four things:

  • The preacher is more qualified than me. He will pray before preaching. That prayer will be better than mine.
  • The preacher will get the inspiration of the Holy Spirit anyway. There’s no need to pray.
  • That’s his job, for which he has been trained; he does not need any prayer in the first place
  • That’s for Sunday. Pleeeeeeenty of time.

These are the most insidious of arguments, because they each hold a tiny nugget of truth. That makes them ring “true-ish”; and makes them all the easier to use as excuses. But each of these arguments is also twisted. Let’s go through them again:

  • The preacher has some level of qualifications; and yes, he will pray before preaching (as well as, hopefully, through the week!). It does not mean that his prayer is better than yours. On the contrary, writing a sermon is no easy task; and it comes with its burdens, stresses, and feelings of low self-esteem. These may impede the preacher’s prayers for his own sermon: for instance, he may feel like he should have done a bit more preparation and he can’t present that work to God (that would be stupid, but stressed people do stupid things). Then your prayer is truly needed; and the knowledge that he is prayed for makes the preacher bolder in his own sermon-writing.
  • The Holy Spirit will inspire the preacher. But that does not supersede the need for prayer (or preparation). There is a famous joke about a young curate who, every week, spent hours preparing his sermons. He was mocked by a very Pentecostal colleague who told him “I only wait to hear from the Spirit”. Enthused by the idea, our young curate decides to try it out. The  next week, when they meet, the Pentecostal colleague asks: “So, did the Spirit speak to you? What did He say?” The curate answers “Yes. He said ‘you’ve been very lazy this week’.”
  • Hopefully, the preacher has undergone some form of formal training. It will generally be the case; and where not, he should receive some form of support by those who are trained. But no training can fully prepare for the sharing of the living Word – or else, that Word becomes dead; and preaching merely a mix of manipulation and of teaching of old doctrine. Only through prayer can we ensure that what the preacher says will genuinely touch the hearts and minds of the congregation.
  • The sermon will be delivered on Sunday. It will, generally, have been written beforehand. Especially in the case of someone preaching for the first time, this will take place days, nay, weeks in advance. Prayer is necessary at all stages of the sermon-crafting, up to the delivery and even beyond that. Additionally, as I’m sure you’ll find, Sunday isn’t that far around the corner.

So pray for your pastor. Pray for his health, his energy, his drive, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – through the week. Pray that he may be a true imitator of Christ, and that he inspire you to be, in turn, imitators of Christ. Pray that he may move you, challenge you, and speak words relevant to you and to the rest of the congregation. Pray that he may move himself, and be once again reminded with great awe of his own nature as a beloved child before God.

What’s your excuse? What will your prayer be?

—

Note: given recent news about female episcopate, it might be worth saying that, in the above article and, I’m sure, in many places through the blog, I have used the masculine as a generic term. It is not a theological statement! In this case, the preacher is a “he”, but might as well be a “she”. I find dual writing “he or she” tedious and cumbersome for the reader as well as for the writer; and abhor the abbreviation “s/he”. The plural sometimes works, it felt very odd to use it here. So if your pastor is female, I will leave it to you, reader, to make the appropriate substitutions!

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