Prayers for Others runs on from the previous segment, Concerns of the Church. Although led by a different person, the concerns often overlap.
We engage in prayers for others with the assumption that God is present and interactive within human lives. As a church, it is important for us to look outward from our own lives as individuals and focus on the places and situations, both far away and in the context of our community, where we desire to see God at work.
“The Quest for the Male Soul” by Martin W. Pable (Ave Maria Press, 1996, p131) has a definition of prayer as “any act whereby we consciously attend to the presence of God within or around us”. Prayers for others is about consciously attending to the presence of God in the context of our concerns for a people, place, or event. As Citysider Derek Christensen puts it in his leading us in prayers: bringing others, in prayer, into our personal circle of relationship with God. The prayer doesn’t have to be verbal. Prayers for others can take the form of drawing, visualising, lighting a candle, writing a name, planting a seed, etc. ‘Consciously attend’ is about heightened awareness, a renewed quality of attention to the needs of others, in whatever form that takes. The segment leader may verbalise our prayers after hearing and listing them, we may all pray in silence, items may be read out for a verbal response, or some kinesthetic response may be used.
It’s often important for people to speak to the gathered church about the item they bring for prayer – just naming the issue has a valuable effect for some people, and sometimes the ‘answer’ to the prayer resides in the offers of assistance that might arise from the congregation as a result of hearing a need. For some, hearing another person frame their concern as a worded prayer to God is important. The scope of prayers for others is not just the needs raised in the congregation, but includes national, international, and community issues that are significant to the people present.
Kathleen Norris writes about this aspect of a church service in her book ‘The Cloister Walk’ (Lion Publishing, Oxford. 1999. pp 294-296). Many of the things she mentions resonate with our experience at Cityside.
“At the worship services of Hope and Spencer there’s a time after the sermon and before the Lord’s Prayer, in which people are asked to speak of any particular joys they might wish to share with the congregation, or concerns they want us to address in our communal prayer on that Sunday and also to pray over during the coming week. It’s an invaluable part of our worship, a chance to discover things you didn’t know: that the young woman sitting in the pew in front of you is desperately worried about her gravely ill brother in Oregon, that the widower in his eighties sitting across the aisle is overjoyed at the birth of his first great-grandchild…
It’s useful news as well; I’m one of many who makes notes on my church bulletin; so and so’s in hospital; send a card, plan a visit. Our worship sometimes goes into a kind of suspended animation as people speak in great detail about the medical condition of their friends or relatives. We wince; we squirm; we sigh; and it’s good for us. Moments like this are when the congregation is reminded of something that all pastors know; that listening is often the major part of ministry…
I sometimes feel that these moments are the heart of our worship. What I think of as the vertical dimension of Presbyterian worship – the hymns… the bible readings… the sermon… — finds a strong and (necessary) complement in the localised, horizontal dimension of these simple statements of ‘joys and concerns’…”
Examples of Prayers for Others from Cityside’s morning service:
- The person leading this section invites people in the congregation to name issues that they’d like prayer about – either thanks or items of concern; these might be written up on overhead or whiteboard, or just jotted down by the person leading the prayers. Then, either the leader will pray through all the issues themselves, or they will state them individually or in clusters with space for others to pray, out loud or in silence. Sometimes, common responses will be used, such as the familiar “Lord, in your mercy” (Response: “Hear our Prayer”).
2. Occasionally (but extremely rarely and warily, to avoid forcing the participation of people who have come needing to be anonymous and private), the congregation will be invited to form small groups and to pray among themselves for issues raised by the members of that group.
3. Using song
The Taizé chant ‘O Lord Hear My Prayer’ – either at the beginning and end of the time of prayer, or between each named prayer.
4. Lighting Candles
Sandtrays with a single lit candle and a collection of smaller, unlit candles are placed around the space. The congregation is invited to move around the space and light a candle to symbolise their prayer.
An alternative on the above is to have the candle tray in one place at the front of the congregation. People state their prayer concerns as normal, and then move forward to light a candle. These candles can be of two different colours – one for requests and one for thanksgiving. This way the whole congregation can hear the needs for prayer and pray with the person as they light the candles. The lit candles at the front of the space are a visual expression of the prayers that have been offered.
- Once, large sheets of cardboard were placed around the space, along with crayons/felt tips. As music was played, the congregation moved from card to card, writing prayers as they went. This way, they could read and affirm the prayers offered by others who had been at the card before them. The track that was used for this: Wendy Matthews, ‘Say a Prayer’, from The Witness Tree album.
(Jolinda Milbank)
6. We have used the following form of the Celtic circling prayer:
“David Adam’s version of the ‘Caim’ or encircling prayer is often a good way of praying when words get in the way, and it seems impossible to focus:
Circle (me/us/them/person’s name), Lord.
keep (comfort) near
and (discouragement) afar
keep (peace) within
and (turmoil) out.”
(From Celtic Night Prayer by the Northumbria Community, Marshall Pickering: London, 1996, pp60-61)
7. Prayers of Compassion
Let us pray for those who need to be remembered this morning. After each heading I give, I invite you to mention to God, aloud or silently, people or situations that come to your mind. After a few moments for prayers I’ll say: ‘Lord have mercy,’ and you will respond with the same: ‘Lord have mercy’.
Leader: For those who have made the news headlines this week because of what they’ve done or said:
We remember… (wait for prayers)
Leader: Lord have mercy (or all sing ‘Kyrie…’ or similar)
Congregation: Lord have mercy
[repeated after each heading]
For those who have been brought to our attention this week through a meeting or a conversation:
We remember…
For those we know who will have difficulty coping with life today:
We remember…
For those who are in hospital, in care, in prison, or in a place which is strange to them:
We remember…
For those who are agonising over a decision they have to make:
We remember…
For those the words ‘peace’ and ‘justice’ bring to mind:
We remember…
For any other special person or situation:
We remember…
For those who share our work and vision:
We remember…
And for ourselves.
(based on Iona Community Worship Book p54, now superseded by The Wee Worship Book, Wild Goose Worship Group, Glasgow: Wild Goose Resource Group, 1999)
8. Flowers
The person leading the prayers brought in a bucket of different flowers and a vase. She put the vase in the middle of the room. She asked for people to call out the situations they wanted to pray for and to each person who spoke, she gave a flower. Flowers were also offered to those with silent prayers. Once everyone who wanted to had named a request, she invited those with flowers to come forward to place their flower into the vase. The person with the flower could pray in that act, others could pray as they watched people place their flower and remembered the need that had been spoken, and at the end there was a bouquet of prayers in the middle of the room.
(Jolinda Milbank)
9. Seeds
Placed around the room were piles of little plastic trays, bags of potting mix, and bowls of seeds. The congregation was invited to speak out their prayer requests. Then, with music playing, everyone who wanted to took a tray, filled it with soil and planted some seeds. As they did so, they prayed for one of the prayer needs that had been mentioned. We were encouraged to take these home and nurture them, and each time we watered them, to think again of the situation that we had prayed for when planting them.
(Jolinda Milbank)
10. Crepe Paper
The leader of the prayers invited people to name situations for prayer. Then, she handed out several rolls of yellow crepe paper, to different people round the room. Those who had received a roll took one end and held on to it, and passed the roll to another person, who passed it on to another and so on, until there were streamers of yellow threading criss-crossed through the room, with people holding on to whatever part of the streamer passed by them. The leader played a music track…and we were invited to pray for the needs that had been expressed, while using the crepe paper streamers to visualize how our prayers threaded through the room, connecting us to each other and to God.
(Jolinda Milbank)
11. Prayer Cards/Leaves
This approach has been used in different ways. The basic idea is that people write their prayers onto pieces of paper/card and take them to a nominated place to hang or stick them up. We have a sculpted wire prayer ‘tree’ that can be used… prayers can be written on leaf-shaped card, or be represented by real leaves, that are hung onto the tree. The cumulative effect of these prayers is to make the tree come ‘alive’. Sometimes cards are hung from pegs, or tied to a clothesline slung across the room. On one occasion prayer ‘flags’ were used, made of strips of fabric, which were left to be a visual display for the following week’s service.
- Other ways of symbolising prayers have included dropping stones into a bucket or pool, and placing small rocks around a large, central rock.
- The Prayers for Others section has sometimes been themed, such as the prayers for mothers, which were written by the congregation during the service and read out during the prayers section, or a father’s day prayer, or prayers relating to All Saints/All Souls (see section 4b)
14. Sometimes, prayer needs will be named, and instead of repeating them in prayer, we will sing a song, or listen to a song, or have silence, during which time the issues that have been named will be held before God in a non-verbal way, in the thoughts and responses and feelings of those present.
15. Praying the News
We were each given a page from the weekend newspaper, and invited to select and rip out an article, headline, photo, etc. that caught our attention and could prompt our prayers. Incense was lit, symbolizing our prayers, as we each hung our newspaper strip on a string hung across the room like a clothesline, saying aloud the issue or situation we had chosen.