On my shelf are two books of prayers. One from Charles Spurgeon and the other from Peter Marshall. Both are transcripts of prayers from services where they led or invocations that they provided. The sheer number of these written prayers impresses on me the need for revisiting prayer in the worship service.
I have been in many churches and in many chapels, so this is not a critique of chapels, specifically, but of all the churches out there in American. Chapels, like the Army, are simply reflections of our country.
I was sitting in one of these churches when I wondered “Why do we only give a couple of prayers?”.
It seems that worship service prayers typically come in two forms:
Short, to the point, “Let’s get this over with” prayers.
And the long “Let’s draw this out as long as it takes to feel spiritual” prayers.
That is harsh, I know.
But I wonder if we really pray in the worship service or is it something we stick in the service because we have to. I have been in services where the prayers were authentic and proper and well meaning. We do not have enough of that. The church and chapel need to be places of prayer. Pastors and Chaplains need to be teaching prayer in the service; teaching how it is done and how to pray in our own lives. Demonstrating worship is so important to a culture who has forgotten God.
Let’s stop praying in stale spur-of-the moment prayers and begin communicating with God. It does not have to be long, but it needs to be authentic.
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This post is a rewrite of a post titled “We Don’t Pray Enough in Chapel” from April 2008.
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