For a selection of prayers offered in public worship over the last few years, click here.
Over the last few years, I’ve led our congregation in community prayer a number of times.
Sometimes, parishioners would ask me for copies of those prayers.
So I began posting them on my blog as an easier way for people to have access to them. Now I’ve collected them here.
Offering prayers on behalf of God’s gathered people was a wonderful task. After reading through the texts for the morning and reflecting with the preacher on the direction of the sermon, each such experience proved to be rich in ways both ecclesiastical and theological. It offered me the privilege of prayerfully considering the texts before us that week and seeking God’s guidance about how to pray. It was a little bit like preaching – and for a preacher who didn’t preach much, that was liberating and humbling.
These prayers tend to be too wordy, and follow a somewhat ‘set’ pattern with many features repeated from month to month – our community prayer time usually occurs after the offering, so was there always a dedicatory piece. I am continually working on how to say things with fewer words. So… as with everything on this blog, these are works in progress.
