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Preparing to Pray This Week at Worship

From John Witvliet's preface to Wonderful Words of Life:

Many Christians are formed to think of their own private prayer life as primary and to consider Sunday worship as effective to the extent that it ignites or deepens their personal piety. In this way of thinking, the question 'what did worship do for me?' is completely natural, even if it is a bit self-centered and individualistic.

Yet it may be more profound and more spiritually healthy to think in precisely the opposite way: that corporate worship-in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts-is our primary and most essential form of prayer; one that gathers up and completes necessary forms of personal piety. This is especially true in times when our individual mental or emotional reserves are depleted. At minimum, this more corporate vision of piety provides a new way to think about and experience the unmistakably corporate language that the Bible gives us for the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit.

We offer this weekly feature to enrich corporate prayer in weekly worship. New items are posted late in the week, so that worshipers can read, reflect, and prepare their hearts for public prayer during worship.

We have found that having a concrete focus in our prayers for the world can help worshipers avoid the sense that global prayer is an abstract and distant exercise; indeed, lifting up specfic individuals, countries, and causes for prayer is a fundamental way the church can be one global body of Christ.

For more resources for the preparation and practice of public prayer, see Prayers of the People, an excerpt of prayers from The Worship Sourcebook, and prayer resources from the Calvin College Chapel.

Latest Entry
The latest Preparing to Pray entry is available at the Worshipers category of our Worship Weblog.

Previous Entries
January 2006: 6-13-20
December 2005: 2-9-16
November 2005: 2-11-18
October 2005: 5-14-21-26
September 2005: 9-16-23-29

Related
7 Ways to Pray for Your Missionary from the Chinese Bible Church of Greater Boston