In recent weeks, I have lifted up the various parts of the Sunday worship service. Today, we come to the Pastoral Prayer or Concerns and Prayers. This can take various forms and is practiced in different ways. It may be a brief prayer of petition and words of thanksgiving offered by the leader or by members of the congregation. It may be a litany of intercession. At Calvary Church, it is commonly a prayer that the pastor composes and offers, gathering up the concerns of the church and the world. It is called the “Pastoral Prayer” but it is a prayer focused on others, both within the congregation and in the larger world.
In this sort of prayer, we ask for healing, peace, comfort, encouragement, boldness, and God’s will to be accomplished in the situations that we name. The prayer can serve as a reminder that God cares for the poor, the sick, the alien, and the forgotten. It can also include thanksgiving for the ways that God has been at work.
The danger of calling this “Pastoral Prayer” is that it suggests that prayer is somehow reserved for the pastor. Of course, all of God’s people’s prayers are precious to God, and nobody’s prayers are in any way better than those made by others. Pastors, however, have a bit more time and training at their disposal to compose a prayer that is suitable in a time of public worship.
When I am composing a prayer, I try to find lots of different prayers offered by others. I then try to pull together words that can speak for the congregation and the larger church worldwide as we face the challenges and opportunities we live in today. And then, the whole church can participate and claim the prayer as their own when together we say AMEN (which means, “so be it”). This becomes just one more way faith is nurtured in us through the act of praying.
Do I have an AMEN?
Pastor Steve