My Dear Shepherds,

For pastors, praying on Sunday mornings can be an occupational hazard. We pray so often. We pray professionally. We pray on demand. So, on Sunday mornings we’re in danger of skipping across the holy ground of prayer, rushing from a song to the sermon, without ever stopping to kick off our sneakers.

Many pastors delegate their praying to others like we do song-leading. I’m all for having others lead in prayer but our people must hear us pray publicly. It’s part of shepherding, part of leading our flock to green pastures, through deathly valleys, and on to the table God has prepared for us.

Frederick Buechner began his novel, On the Road with the Archangel, with Raphael explaining how he delivers prayers to God.

Some prayers I hold out as far from me as my arm will reach, the way a woman holds a dead mouse by the tail when she removes it from the kitchen. Some, like flowers, are almost too beautiful to touch, and others so aflame that I’d be afraid of their setting me on fire if I weren’t already more like fire than I am like anything else. There are prayers of such power that you might almost say they carry me rather than the other way round. … Some prayers are very boring.” (p. 1)

That pretty well describes the range of Sunday morning prayers I’ve heard, mine included. But pastoral prayers need to be taken seriously! This may be the one time our whole congregation comes boldly to the throne of grace together. Pray with heft and heart, lifting great weights of worship, lament, confession, and petition to God. Cut out the clichés! (I heard Chuck Swindoll say, “If I hear ‘lead, guide, and direct’ once more I think I’m gonna throw up!”)

I prayed best when I began with pre-prayer prayer. I’d sit alone in the quiet, asking the Spirit for his direction and burden. I’d wait as various thoughts ran through my mind till just three or four came front and center. If there was a particular request that I needed to pray for—say a missionary family or an important ministry—I’d wait on the Spirit for specific direction on that, too, rather than falling back on hackneyed phrases.

Look for biblical paving stones to walk on as you pray—promises or stories, specific truths about the Lord or his ways. By writing out a prayer, or at least considered phrases, we find stronger words which help our people listen and join us. Be sure to consciously summon up your faith. There are prayers that are true and good but don’t have much lift because we’re not actually entrusting them to the Father. We’re saying God-ward things without actually talking to God.

Finally, be earnest and honest. Recently I heard a pastor’s voice break as he prayed that the churches in his community would be unified and it sobered me up. In her book, Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard writes of attending a small church with maybe 20 people.

The minister is a Congregationalist, and wears a white shirt. The man knows God. Once, in the middle of the long pastoral prayer of intercession for the whole world—for the gift of wisdom to its leaders, for hope and mercy to the grieving and pained, succor to the oppressed, and God’s grace to all—in the middle of this he stopped, and burst out, “Lord, we bring you these same petitions every week.” After a shocked pause, he continued reading the prayer. Because of this, I like him very much. (p. 58)

Be ye glad!

Lee Eclov recently retired after 40 years of local pastoral ministry and now focuses on ministry among pastors. He writes a weekly devotional for preachers on Preaching Today.