Tag: Prayer

How Can We Lead Prayer Better?

What are the problems involved in evangelical and charismatic approaches to public prayer? And how can it be done better?

In my (charismatic free) wing of the Church our services don’t feature much written or traditional prayers or liturgies. We prefer to change the exact words we speak to reflect the type of community we are waking in or what we think the Holy Spirit wants us to do at any particular moment.

There are big advantages to this approach. 

It allows us to be flexible, fresh and to respond to the needs and characteristics of the people in Church. It also allows us to be alert to what the Holy Spirit might want to do at the time we are ministering. Finally it allows us to model for the people we are pastoring that they can pray in any language and in a way that is real for their personality and background.

With that said, emphasising contemporaneous prayer also has drawbacks. 

Andrew Wilson has written about the need,  in the midst of spontaneity,  to maintain the essential elements of Christian worship (like praying, reading Scripture, taking communion etc). Otherwise our worship becomes progressively less and less full of the riches of worship the spirit has given to his Church in Scripture and Tradition. We want to be “Eucharismatic” in our worship.

My concern here is a slightly different one. When the charismatic or evangelical worship leader, venue pastor or preacher leads the Church in spontaneous or unplanned prayer, he (or she) is writing liturgy and language that needs to sum up, express and model the concerns of the Church, the needs of the world and the right way to address God. All at the same time as teaching the people how to do that for themselves. 

This is a much harder task to do well than one might imagine. It involves formulating Scripturally sound, theologically rich, pastorally sensitive and reverent words, expressing them contemporaneously and clearly, and then fitting them into the rhythm and setting of an informal worship service. 

If we are not careful the spontaneous prayer we bring becomes all the things we want to avoid as people of the Spirit and Scripture. 

I think there are three particular areas we need to be careful about (drawn from my own failings leading prayer and worship over many years):

  1. Not including much, if any prayer, in public services.
    Here we end up having extended singing followed by a sermon (and maybe communion). There might be a short prayer between songs or at the end. But, if we’re honest, it’s not a particular feature of the service, certainly compared to, for example, sung worship or a talk. 
  2. Having my own personal prayer time in front of the congregation rather than leading them in prayer.
    Here I end up praying in a slight mumble with my eyes closed and talking quickly and informally, as if I am having an internal monologue. The problem is I am not leading the congregation at this point; instead, they are just watching me pray.
  3. Praying prayers that, instead of expressing the immediate, urgent, prophetic intercession of the Spirit praying through me, become predictable, banal, cliched, and dominated by non-words that litter speech such as “just…”, “yeah…” and so on.
    The ‘just’, and ‘yeah’ prayers are actually the least problematic form of this. It gets much worse when public prayer becomes dominated by the concerns or vocabulary of the leader’s own politics or concerns, narrate their own thoughts about life, politics, social issues or Jesus (often with the phrase ‘God, you know that… followed by explaining it to him anyway). At times they can become offensively bad. The most egregious one I’ve heard used the phrase ‘blaze, Spirit, blaze’ from Shine Jesus Shine (an excellent song people are wrongly snobbish about) to segue into intercession about a major fire in which people had lost their lives. It was, to say the least, not optimal.

What can we do to remedy these difficulties if they begin to arise in our context or ministry?
One approach would be to begin using formal, written liturgies. That approach might be one we should consider (I’ll leave that to Andrew to argue for). I think, however, that there is another approach that would allow us to keep the good that we find in spontaneous prayer while also remedying its difficulties.

Resolving these issues requires us to think a bit more about what is happening when we pray publicly, particularly if we do so spontaneously.

Filling Our Stores: The Christian Tradition of Prayer

When we speak publicly, whether in prayer, preaching or some other way, we are essentially bringing words, ideas and idioms out of our minds and memories. No speech is, in that sense, truly spontaneous. We are a bit like jazz musicians Who seem to be producing spontaneous, improvised music but are doing so using scales, techniques and phrases they have internalised over time practising. Or footballers,  who produce moments and movements of inspiration in the immediate context of a match but draw on hours of drills and practised skilIs. 

If we want to lead prayer well,  therefore, we need to practise. 

That means filling our minds and memories with great prayer, Scripture and discipline so that we have something to draw from when we pray in public. In some ways, this is more important for those of us in traditions that don’t use a formal liturgy in our public services than it is for those who do. It is precisely because we want to be able to lead the congregation in spontaneous prayer in response to the Spirit’s leading in the moment of worship that we particularly need to fill our minds and mouths with the language, cadence and concerns of great prayers. We might repeat these exact prayers as we lead people to pray. More likely, though, is that we will begin to pray with a greater fluency and depth when we create our own prayers. We will also find the content of our prayers becomes more timeless and aligned with the eternal and historic concerns of the Church and the saints she contains and less dominated by the phrases and personal preoccupations we unconsciously find ourselves repeating.

Similarly, disciplining ourselves to include in our daily devotional life a set time in the Psalms or the Divine Office imprints on our minds and hearts the central importance of prayer as a discipline for both public and private worship. We will find, then, that the impulse to overlook intentional times of public prayer on the basis that there is no time in the service or that it interrupts the “flow” or mood of sung worship is easier to overcome. 

Moreover, the discipline of reading (out loud) the prayers of the historic Church and of Israel is an antidote to the habit of mumbling to oneself when leading in prayer. These are prayers written and published with the intent of being read publicly. They have that feel about them.  As we begin to make them a part of the unconscious reservoir from which we draw our public prayers, we will begin to find that we construct and project our prayers with a similar tone.

What Does This Mean in Practice?

So what does this mean for those Who regularly lead prayer in charismatic or evangelical  services? 

There are, I think, three specific things that will transform the way we pray, and particularly how we pray in public.

  1. When praying, remember we are leading the congregation and not just praying on our own in front of them.
    That means:
    1. Begin your prayer with clarity. Don’t just let the prayer ’emerge’ from under your breath.
    2. Go at a pace where the congregation can follow what you are saying and agree with it. God can understand you at your fastest speed but we can’t.
    3. Think about what you want to say and then say it. Don’t feel the need to keep on speaking when you don’t have anything to say at that moment.
  2. Plan to pray as part of your service leading.
    If you are not able to say when you are going to lead the congregation in prayer during a service, there is a problem. Choose a time in the service and allocate who is leading prayer and what you want for it. A good test is to think how you would treat the preparation of sung worship in terms of planning etc and then make sure prayer in the service is at least as good and focussed as that.
  3. Twice a day, as part of your daily devotional times, include praying the Psalms and/ or a traditional Daily Office.
    There are lots of modern versions of a liturgy of the hours or something similar. However, to be honest, I think you are better off with one of the older ones from a historic denomination. For me, the best you can do is get the free “Daily Office” app. It is a Catholic app, devoted to systematically praying through the Psalms and uses many of the ancient prayers of the Church. If you don’t want to use a prayer book then read three Psalms (give or take, depending on the Psalm length)twice a day as part of morning and evening prayer.

Throughout this article I have focused on the pragmatic reasons for immersing yourself in the Church’s historic prayers. There is, however, another even more powerful reason to do so. These prayers have been collected, edited, arranged and prayed over millennia. Praying them each day as part of a disciplined prayer life won’t just make you better at praying; it will bring you joy. Ultimately every worship leader themselves needs to draw close to Christ. Disciplined prayer with the church will help you to do that.

Further Reading and Resources

If you want to explore these ideas further or get into praying with the Church, here are some resources to get you started.

Books about this type of prayer for evangelicals:

Prayer Books or Apps

How to Be People of Influence and Purpose

Do you want to live a life of influence and purpose? Jesus wants that for you too.
Jesus wants you to live a life of influence and purpose by learning to pray, to talk and to listen.

One of the issues that comes up most often in my pastoral work, particularly as I and my peers hit middle-age, is how we can live a life of influence and purpose.

I think a lot of us crave both of those things. We want to know what we are doing with our lives and to feel it is worth it.

I’ve noticed that this sense is even stronger among the young people I meet. They struggle with the pressure (and desire) to change the world, but simultaneously with the knowledge that doing so seems next to impossible.

I have often wondered to myself if this is a major contributor to the epidemic of anxiety and self-harm that is well documented among under-20s. They know they want to do something about a world they are repeatedly told is dying (and have a moral obligation to do so) but practical forms of action that make a real difference are not available to them. The result is familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of religion and history: a sense of guilt accompanied by helplessness that generates anger and anxiousness. The guilt cannot be forgiven because there is noone to absolve, and the helplessness cannot be overcome because there is nothing an individual can do to atone for a shared sense of failure (that the planet is burning or some such) or to repent by putting the wrong right.

I was meditating on some of these concerns as I read Mark 1:20-39.

Before I explain what I think this passage has to say about this in any more detail, I what I’m going to say in one or two sentences so it is easy to remember. Here is today’s:

Jesus wants you to live a life of influence and purpose by learning to pray, to talk and to listen.

Before you go any further, you should read the passage using the link above. What I’m saying will make more sense if you know what I’m talking about.

  1. Let Jesus Influence You By Learning to Pray

The first thing we see in this passage is that when we choose to bring Jesus into our lives he can bring real and positive change.

The scene is set in Capernaum, a town in Northern Israel where Jesus was based. He and his students had been in the synagogue, worshipping and Jesus had delivered a man who was afflicted with an evil Spirit. You can read about it in the previous couple of paragraphs.

Now they go back from the synagogue to Simon and Andrew’s house. 

Notice that they don’t go there because Simon’s mother-in-law is sick; Simon doesn’t tell Jesus about it until he’s already at the house. They go because Jesus’ students are making Jesus a part of their whole lives. He isn’t just someone they listen to in the Synagogue and then try to remember what he said, or marvel at what he did. Those are good things. But the disciples do something more. They take Jesus home with them.

The benefits of making Jesus a part of our whole lives become obvious when we look at verse 31. Because Jesus is with them outside the Synagogue, they are able to ask him for what they need when they need it. So they arrive home and Simon’s mother-in-law is sick, very sick. And because Jesus is there, Simon is able to ask him to help.

It’s a process. First you accept you need Jesus outside church. You start to read your Bible (or a Bible app) and to worship at home during the week, build a devotional life, begin to pray about work, or family, or your day. Then when a crisis starts to emerge – your family are sick or you need help – you know who to ask and know he is there.

It is then that Jesus heals her. He responds to Simon’s request, in effect to Simon’s prayer. 

This is a pattern that occurs again and again throughout the Scriptures. Jesus doesn’t impose himself on people (unless they are completely bound by demons or sickness). He allows us to choose the extent to which we will accept his presence in our lives.

You might be thinking: “That’s fine for Simon. He had Jesus there with him. I’d invite Jesus around for lunch if he were here.”

That’s a completely understandable response. But I do have a couple of observations.

First I’d gently push back and say: would you? 

Lots of people didn’t. How can you be so sure? How can I? I know I make a lot of excuses for why I don’t cultivate my spiritual life – why I don’t pray and read the Bible that range from the good (I’ve been called to rush to hospital) to the bad (Spurs might score and I don’t want to miss it).

But more importantly, second: we can be with Jesus in all of our life, not just in church. 

Christ isn’t still here bodily. It’s better than that. That is the reason for his Ascension into heaven and the sending of the Holy Spirit. In Simon’s day, only one person’s house could have Christ in it. Now he can be with you wherever. 

That’s the starting point for everything. A great preacher once said that, “Jesus’ power is in his presence”. If you want to be someone of peace, purpose, and influence the most important thing is to be someone whose life is full of Jesus – not just someone who comes to church on a Sunday morning.

He’s what you ultimately need.

  1. Influence Others By Learning to Talk

The next thing I notice in these verses is that word spread.

We’re not told how, but at some point during that afternoon the word about what Jesus had done for Peter’s mother-in-law spread all around the village. 

Capernaum wasn’t a huge place. Even so, this is very impressive. In a matter of hours word has spread and there are queues of people outside waiting for Jesus.

What have they come for? For an evangelist or preacher it is tempting to want to see this as a revival – of people desperate to receive forgiveness or to hear Jesus preach.

That isn’t what Mark says, however. It’s much more relatable than that. 

Look at verse 33. The crowds come to ask Jesus to do for them what he had done for the man in the Synagogue and for Peter’s mother-in-law.

What has happened is that the man who was set free – who experienced mental and spiritual healing – and those who had been blessed by the physical healing have gone around and told people. 

They haven’t tried to tell everyone who Jesus is. As far as we know, they haven’t given them a tract or called them to repent (there’s certainly no evidence of that here).  They have just told their stories of how Jesus has helped them, of how they have benefited from his presence. And others have decided that they want some of that too.

Again, this is a pattern we see repeated over and over again. Heather touched on it a couple of weeks ago in her talk about how Philip and Nathaniel came to follow Jesus. 

One of the main ways, if not the main way, that ordinary people brought others to know Jesus in the New Testament was to learn to talk about how they had benefited from him, what he had done from them. Then others think they want a piece of that.

Again, we’re going to look at the practical way to do this more in a moment. 

Fundamentally, however, it relies on two basic ideas that I think most people who know Jesus would agree with but that we sometimes forget.

  1. Knowing Jesus is good for us – we get loads from it.
  2. Knowing Jesus would really help others – they would get loads from it.

If you agree with both of those ideas then it makes sense that we would want to talk about our own experiences of Jesus or church with others. I get this is difficult so I’m going to explain how to do it better in a moment (not that I’ve particularly nailed this, but I am learning!)

  1. Find Purpose By Learning to Listen

So I have argued for making Jesus a part of our whole lives – at work, at football, at school, at a care home, even at church. And that when we do, we should then want to share that with others.

But what about direction? This is one of the biggest felt needs I come across pastorally. And I don’t have a magic bullet. 

There isn’t a way to buy a cheat-map of life with all the right answers on it. And for good reason. 

A life of faith is a life that is necessarily built on trust. It isn’t about me knowing all the answers and then being able to implement them. It is more about me entrusting myself to someone else to lead me and guide me.

In that sense it’s more like rally-driving than it is Formula 1. 

In Formula 1, everyone knows the track – it’s easy. The question is how well can you navigate it as fast as you can. In rally driving the track is varied and variable. You’re driving but it is the navigator who knows where you’re going. The driver needs him and has to trust him.

A life of faith is like a rally-race.

But that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. What we see when we look at Jesus’s example in verse 35-39 is that, while we may not know every turn we should take in advance, we can know the principles that help us to make good choices. We can know why we are here, what we should prioritise, and when we need to be alert to dangers.

That kind of sense of purpose comes from spending time in quiet prayer with God. It might be sitting silently in a chair. It might be going for a long walk. It might be something completely different. But it is about learning to quiet every other voice, to present ourselves to God and then to say what do you want? What do you want for me?

When we do that regularly, we don’t get all the answers to every choice we should make. But we become aware of the values and principles that should guide us – why we have come, to paraphrase Jesus’ words.

It might be saying yes to a promotion because it allows you to provide for more people or lead in a way that will bless them. Or “no” to a promotion because God has called you to be a father or mother first.

It might be saying no to an opportunity because you know it will distract you from something else or to go and try something new because you want to meet new people to speak to about Jesus.

I can’t answer that question because I’m not you. 

But the only way to get peace and stop being restless is to ask, to make time to listen to the answer and then act on it.

Jesus wants you to live a life of influence and direction by learning to pray, share and listen.

Application

What does this mean for us as we try to know hope, show hope and share hope.

Choosing to make Jesus a part of our life isn’t harder now than it was then, it’s easier. This is a quick set of suggestions for how to do it. You can add to them or take them away as you wish. I’ll start at the beginning of the day.

  • Set up part of your house as a prayer area. That’s where you’re going to go to pray or meditate in the morning and evening. You might designate it with an icon or a cross or something.
  • When you wake up in the morning, pray. The amount you can pray is going to change depending on your circumstances. But everyone here can pray first thing. Everyone here has some time.
    You can make up your own prayers – using T.A.P. That takes about 4 minutes.
    You could use a prayer book or app – I’m happy to recommend them.
    But pray. First thing. Before checking Facebook.
  • Take on Scripture. You can do this by reading it, listening to it, or meditating on it. Again, everyone can do this. You can listen to a 10 minute podcast while you breastfeed or a 15 minute devotional while you drive to work. Or if you have more time, you can spend an hour in silent meditation.
    But do something. You probably won’t feel an immediate benefit but over time it will help immeasurably.
  • Pray before meals and before work. This sounds as simple as it is. Say thank you for your food 3 times a day. Before you start work or a task, thank God for it and ask for his help.
    This starts to build an awareness that Jesus is at work in these places and changes our attitude.
  • At the end of the day, before bed, spend 5 minutes remembering the day. Then say thank you for anything you are grateful for and sorry for anything you regret. I find it helps to journal this 
  • Find times when you can be away from others and quiet. Take headphones out or off. If there are decisions that have to be made, ask God about them and then walk or sit in silence. For at least 30 minutes.

Jesus wants you to live a life of influence and purpose by learning to pray, to talk and to listen.

3 Reasons to Pray (and Read) the Psalms

The Psalms are an amazing resource filled with imagery that captivates and captures the imagination of artists and saints from Bach to Coolio. They reveal God, teach us to pray, and offer practical wisdom for life.

We’ve just started a new sermon series looking at the Psalms. It’s a powerful book filled with imagery that captivates and captures the imagination of artists and saints from Bach to Coolio. But it can also be confusing and, in places, disconcerting.

There are, however, lots of good reasons to persevere with praying (and just reading the Psalms).

1 They Reveal God to Us

The Psalms teach us about God and, in particular, about Jesus. They contain a wealth of doctrine about creation, redemption, purpose and the God behind it all. In particular they point us to the problem of sin – humanity’s brokenness in its relationship to God and to sin. And then they point past the problem to Christ as its future solution.

The Orthodox Study Bible puts it this way:

The Psalms have become for the Church, as for ancient Israel, a book of prayer and praise. All find their fulfillment in Christ, the Son of God.

2 They Teach Us to Pray

Fundamentally the Psalms are a book of prayers and hymns. They are, therefore, a wonderful resource for learning how to pray well. If you want to be a good pray-er then begin by praying the Psalms. That is, after all, what Jesus did: when things were hard (crucifixion hard), and almost everyone had left him, he prayed the words of the Psalms.

The Orthodox Study Bible continues:

Not only do the Psalms predict specific events of Christ’s life, but in them He Himself intercedes for and with His people before the Father. The Psalms can also be seen as a dialogue between the Church, the body of Christ, and Christ her Head. Therefore, they make the most sense to us when they are prayed or sung, not simply read.

Or in the words of the evangelical, Expositor’s Study Bible:

Prayer is a person’s communion with God. Prayers in the Psalter sometimes take the form of complaints against the Lord. The individual or community laments the adversity, describes the evil in God’s world, or petitions God to be true to his promises. Faith cries out for reality, and lament functions as an expression of authenticity…

Praise is a person’s longing for God and for others to be moved with the same desire for God…Israel praised the perfections of the Lord, his kingship, his revelation, and his covenant. But they longed for the fullness of redemption, especially when distressed.

3 They Offer Wisdom for Life

The Psalms contain real practical wisdom for how we should live. Right from Psalm 1, we are given advice about how to prosper – to flourish, be blessed or live well. Fundamentally this is rooted on a spiritual posture of humility, submission and adoration towards God, our Creator. That is the key to everything else.

This attitude of obedience flows out in myriad ways, including things as practically helpful as the benefits and blessings of financial generosity (Psalm 112:5) or about the possibility and grace of forgiveness irrespective of what we’ve done.

Read the Psalms; pray the Psalms; obey the Psalms. Simple.

To dive deeper, watch this amazing video from the guys at The Bible Project.