prayer

Writing Prayers for Worship

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Writing prayers for worship calls for the creativity of a poet, the sensitivity of a pastor, the insight of a theologian, and the foundation of a living relationship with God. Weaving together these concerns, this article gives advice to the worshiper who is given the task of writing prayers for public worship. It suggests an approach that will be accessible for beginners and challenging for experienced worship leaders.

Prayer is the heartbeat of worship—our living, vital entrance into the presence of God.

It is also often the part of the worship service in which most people’s minds go to sleep.

Is it possible to write prayers for worship that powerfully bring people into God’s presence? Can written prayers help us to shake off the lethargy of our congregational prayers? Yes, it is possible—given some basic spiritual principles.

A Levitical Tradition

If you are writing prayers for worship, you are part of the tradition of Levites that goes back to the time of Moses. God set apart an entire tribe to be in charge of the Israelite worship, and many of our most beautiful prayers and songs come from Asaph and the sons of Korah. Written prayers, whether spoken or set to music, from the heart of the earliest Jewish and Christian worship.

Your calling, as a modern-day Asaph, is to find language and imagery that engages people’s minds and hearts in honest, worshipful, heartfelt prayer to the living God. But why written prayers?

First of all, there is nothing wrong with spontaneous prayers. These can be as eloquent, moving, and effective as written prayers. But not everyone feels comfortable making up a prayer on the spur of the moment in front of a large group of people. Sometimes the pray-er forgets things that he or she had wanted to say—or says things later regretted.

Writing your prayers allows you to think out beforehand what the congregation needs to be saying to God in prayer at that point in the service. It enables you to word your prayers so that they apply to the entire congregation (especially important in prayers of confession and repentance or commitment).

Writing down the prayer beforehand also challenges you to use fresh language, to find images that will focus the congregation’s hearts and imaginations on God. It will keep your prayers from being unnecessarily long and repetitious.

And written, responsive-type prayers allow the congregation to join you not only with their hearts and minds but with their voices as well.

Choosing Language Wisely

Choice of language is where the creative part of your worship gifts comes into play. Language, a gift from the Creator, can be a powerful force in touching people’s spirits and bringing them to God.

It’s too easy when praying “off the cuff,” to use prayer language that is overused and worn out. For example, O most holy God, we come to Thee in the evening hour of this day to thank Thee for all that Thou hast done for us. We come before Thee now to ask that Thou wilt be with us, that Thou wilt bless us and guide us in all that we do. Hear us now, we pray, in the name of your Son, our Lord, and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is nothing wrong with the thoughts expressed in this prayer. They are reverent and proper and have probably been used, with some variation, in many church services down through the years.

But there’s the rub. Like stones that have been rolled together for a long time, these words and phrases have tumbled through our consciousness so often that they have lost their sharpness. Even substituting “you” for the “Thees” and “Thous” does little to bring this prayer alive. There is no “edge” to the language. It has lost its ability to move us, to catch our imagination. Sadly, it will (and often has) put us to sleep.

Choose your language wisely. Use images for God that help people to picture the living Eternal One. There are many images we can use, of course; think of the one most appropriate to the service or mood or theme of that day’s Scripture. (This is especially important, as the Scripture should shape and influence the whole of the worship service.)

If the focus is on God’s tender care of us, for example, images like shepherd, father, mother, brother, and comforter come to mind. If it is on God’s sovereign power, work with images such as wind and fire, the Creator who stretched out the heavens, or the “Lord who will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior.”

Don’t be afraid to use concrete, specific images for God: rock, water, fire, shepherd, friend, shield, mother hen, lamb, bread, and so on. God, knowing that we are unable to comprehend fully his nature, gives us these images in Scripture so we can at least understand him on the simplest of levels. And the wealth of scriptural images reminds us of the many facets of God’s nature and his dealings with us. Focusing on one of these in prayer and using Scripture’s own language to make it come alive is one of the most helpful things you can do in writing prayers.

Using visual imagery in language helps to touch people’s imaginations and hearts, making them more aware of God’s presence. But you have only a brief time—a few minutes at the most—to do this. So use only one picture or several related ones in each prayer. Make the picture as clear and sharp as it can be; avoid general, cliched language (without going overboard in poetic extremes).

Once you’ve chosen a scriptural word picture to use, work at making it a unifying theme of your prayer. For example, Lord Jesus, you are our living Head. Teach us to be your body here on earth—your hands, your feet, your eyes, and compassionate heart. Lord, send the impulses of your love into the sinews of this church. May your will and thoughts direct us. Let your hands, through our hands, supply food for our neighbors’ hunger. Let them hear your voice as we visit and talk with them. Let the children come to us and sit in our laps, as they sat in yours. Without you as our Head, Lord, we are lifeless. We wait for your power, your word, your instruction. Fill us with your life and love, Jesus. Amen.

One other consideration in your choice of language is your congregation’s preference for formal or informal liturgy. There are some beautiful prayers taken from the language of “high church” liturgy in the traditional responsive mode. Here is one example that can be used as a call to worship at Pentecost, taken from Praise God: Common Prayer at Taize:

L:     Blessed be our God at all times, now and always and forever and ever.
P:     Amen.
L:     Glory to you, our God! Glory to you! Holy Spirit, Lord and Comforter, Spirit of truth everywhere present, filling all that exists, Treasury of good gifts and Source of life, come and dwell in us, cleanse us from all sin and in your love bring us to salvation:
P:     God, holy; God, strong and holy; God, holy and immortal; have pity on us.

But if you prefer a more “low church” informality, you might use this Pentecost prayer instead:

L:     Holy Spirit, you are the fire of holiness that surrounds the throne of God. You burn away our sin and blindness; you fill us with the beauty and purity of Jesus, our Lord.
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!
L:     Burn in us this morning, Holy Spirit. We give you the places of our hearts that have been choked by the cares of this world. We give you our tiredness, our sin, our struggles with apathy. We wait your fiery cleansing.
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!
L:     May the Word of God this morning burn in our minds, our wills, our feelings. May we sense the light and heat of your presence in that Word. Speak to us, O burning power of God!
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!

Praying the Scriptures

Much of Scripture is prayer: the Psalms, portions of the prophets, David’s beautiful prayer in 1 Chronicles 29, the simple prayers of our Lord, the magnificent prayers of Paul’s epistles. Use them as part of your written prayers; combine them, reword them, find the best places to break them into a back-and-forth echo between leader and congregation. For example, consider this adaptation of Psalm 84 as a responsive prayer to open worship:

P:     This sanctuary is lovely to us, O God—O living, powerful Lord almighty! Deep within our spirits we long to be near you, to stay here in your courts and to worship you.
P:     Our heart and our flesh cry out to you, O living God.
L:     Even the sparrow is welcome here, to build her nest by your altars, O Lord of all the worlds!
P:     It would be our greatest joy to live in your house and to praise you forever!
L:     Those who find their strength in you will find this place full of living water, even if they pass through the valley of weeping.
P:     To spend one day here in worship is better than a thousand elsewhere!

Pastoral Considerations

Appropriateness. If you are writing a prayer for your congregation, be sure that it applies to them. Do not make the congregation say something they are not ready or willing to say about themselves. Do not say, “We confess that we ignore our neighbors and fail to pray for them,” for example, when it might be true of you but not true of 10 or 20 percent of the people participating in the prayer with you. A safer way is to say, “Forgive us when we ignore our neighbors … ”

Brevity. Keep prayers as brief and as honest as possible. Take as your example the prayer of the publican: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Say what you need and want to say—no more than that. Avoid the length, flowery language, and self-congratulation of the Pharisee. As Jesus said, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Honesty. Make honesty the hallmark of your prayers. People want and need honesty in religion—plainspoken honesty that gets past the nice words and speaks the truth with God’s love. If your prayers lack an honest, direct grasp of the truth—by avoiding mention of divisions in your congregation, for example, or by smoothing over your lack of effectiveness in outreach or your struggle to make ends meet financially—then the congregation will get the message that prayer is just for “nice” things and not for the difficult, specific problems facing your church.

Audience. Do not use prayer as an opportunity to preach to anyone. You are not making points to remind your listeners of certain truths; your listener is God himself. Always be aware of this and say to God what you would if you were directly in his presence.

Here’s a good thing to do as you are starting to write a prayer for worship: Before anything else, use your God-given imagination to place yourself in the court of heaven. See the God of Isaiah, who is high and lifted up, and whose train fills the temple. Smell the smoke and incense of the God of Revelation, and see the blinding white throne and the unbearable majesty that radiates from God’s holiness. Hear the angels cry around the throne, “Holy, Holy, Holy is he who is and who was and who is to come!”

Hear also the gentle invitation to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need.” See with the eyes of your heart the figure of Jesus, our high priest, and brother, standing and pleading before the throne for the needs of you and your congregation.

Then write your prayer, conscious that this is no ploy or trick of the imagination but rather the highest glimpse of reality that you will see. Do not write your prayers first of all with the people in mind; write them with the presence of God in your mind and heart. Then your prayers will speak; they will also lift people to the throne and presence of God. Your language will be reverent, humble, holy, full of praise, calling participants to join you in the Holy of Holies.

A Final Word

To write for worship is, in a sense, to be an Old Testament Levite. The Levites’ calling required spiritual preparation: ritual cleansing, donning white linen garments, and so on. Before you begin to write for worship, make sure that you have put on the white linen of forgiveness and righteousness, having confessed your sins and asked God’s Spirit to cleanse and fill you.

Does this sound pretentious or unnecessary? Not if you take God’s holiness and his call to worship seriously. Even the most beautifully written prayer or litany is lifeless without the quiet presence of God’s power. And that power can make the simplest prayer come alive for those who listen and participate.

The Language of Prayer

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The text of a prayer is only one element important in the act of public prayer. For the way in which a prayer is spoken, the attitudes that accompany it, and the nonverbal gestures which complement it often communicate as much of the meaning of the prayer as the text itself. This article looks at the whole act of public prayer, offering worship planners pastoral, liturgical, and aesthetic guidelines regarding prayer.

It is a sign of health and a cause for rejoicing that the shelves of bookstores carry so many resources for prayer in worship and books about prayer. In my reading, however, one crucial part of prayer in worship draws scant attention: namely, the ways that prayers are spoken and experienced in worship. This act of praying in worship is the focus of this article.

We have all had the experience of sitting in a congregation and having prayers spoiled by the way the leader speaks them: prayers of thanksgiving voiced in a desultory, dejected fashion; prayers of intercession undercut with a mean or arrogant edge, as though the congregation was being scolded for insufficient concern for the causes in the prayers. Several years ago, I was asked to speak briefly to a church study group. The assignment was to speak about love in the most thoroughly unloving fashion I could manage. I remember, incidentally, that I found it a disturbingly easy assignment and wished there was more demand for such speeches. That experience is called to mind when certain prayers are spoken in worship: the mood of the speaking violates the content of the words.

It is a bit surprising, then, that the voicing of prayer receives relatively little attention in the literature. Perhaps that inattention is because many of the people who write frequently about prayer have a nearly magical view of the power of words. There is, I suspect, an unvoiced assumption that the words for prayer if written beautifully enough, will necessarily be prayer simply because they are so forcefully written. Such trust in the power of the right words can lead also to a kind of smugness about the worship being led and the prayers being offered. It occasionally seems as though we leaders of worship feel that as long as we have the right prayers to say, no criticism can touch us.

Some years ago, I heard a comparison of the worship of black churches with that of “high church” congregations. The worshipers in a black church, it was observed, knew that if Christ were to return and visit their worship, all their frail human attempts at praise would be burned away by the presence of God’s holiness. In high church Protestantism, however, if the Lord were to return to worship, the leaders of worship would expect the Lord (a) to be impressed by the splendor of the style and the seriousness of the content, and (b) to take a seat quietly in the back and not disturb the flow of worship. This comparison might serve to point to a certain belligerent rightness, a false pride in some of our prayers which can make worship very difficult.

The concern that prayers in worship not be ruined by the way they are voiced is somewhat akin to a concern expressed by Professor Ralph Underwood (“The Presence of God in Pastoral Care Ministry,” Austin Presbyterian Seminary Bulletin 101:4 [October 1985]). Under the section of his article “Guidelines for Pastoral Prayers,” Dr. Underwood calls for “prayer as authentic response … [as] opposed to the conventional prayer at the end of a visit, the pastor’s ritual escape.… ” He then offers three guidelines that would encourage this authenticity in prayers in pastoral settings. These guidelines are in the form of three questions:

1.     “Is the prayer we have with people a response to God?”
2.     “Is the prayer a response to the person or persons in whose presence we find ourselves?”
3.     “Is the prayer a response to the God of Scripture?”

It is obvious that prayer in worship is different from prayer in pastoral care. Prayer in worship should not be as personal or unguarded as the prayer in moments of pastoral ministry. Prayer in worship has far more people praying with the leader and has some educational effect on these people; those who lead prayer in worship must strive to take account of them. In spite of these obvious differences in the kinds of prayers, there is still a great deal to be learned by using Dr. Underwood’s guidelines to assess our prayers in worship, particularly those prayers spoken by the leader for the people.

Response to the People

It will be helpful to begin with Dr. Underwood’s second question: “Is the prayer a response to the persons in whose presence we find ourselves?” Prayer in worship, like prayers in pastoral care, will be more nearly alive and authentic if the people invited to pray with the speaker recognize some of their experience reflected in the prayers. When the prayers voice thanks for what the congregation feels thankful and when they pray for what the congregation feels needful, those prayers are more likely to enrich and energize the worship of the people.

This reflection of the experience of the people will require both pastoral content with the people and some focused attention on that experience. Dr. James A. Jones, in a classroom lecture printed as an introduction to a volume of his prayers, told of following the example of F. B. Meyer (Prayers for the People [Richmond: John Knox, 1967], 11). Mr. Meyer would go into the church and walk the aisles during the week. He knew where people sat, would sit in their pews and pray for them there. A discipline like that can make the prayers in worship an authentic response to the people.

The prayers in worship will be more nearly alive and authentic if the people find them reflecting not only their own experiences but also their own prayers. While we can never know fully the prayer life of a congregation, we can safely assume that people know their prayers are imperfect and inadequate. An awkward question needs then to be faced: can prayers in worship that are always carefully crafted and elegant be authentic prayers of the people? The question could be turned around: when our prayers in worship are always well turned and controlled, do we not teach the people that only perfect prayers are acceptable? Do the people not conclude that prayers less than elegant will (to use Dr. Underwood’s phrase) “require suppression”? Raising a question about the effectiveness of well-prepared prayers could be misused, of course, to justify the worst kind of sloppiness in worship prayers. Recognizing that danger does not, however, change the need for prayers that reflect, at least to a degree, the prayer life of the people in the congregation.

Dr. Underwood argues that prayers in pastoral care settings can be offered even out of our false consciousness or our confusion and still be an authentic response or, at least, can lead to that authenticity. The same argument can be made, given the proper guards against overuse, to apply to prayers in worship.

Mrs. Merel Burleson, a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Midland, Texas, an artist and art teacher, told me of her “blue bead theory” about certain types of Mexican art. Her theory developed out of two experiences. The first was a remark to her by her art teacher when she was a child. As she worked so very hard on a project to make things exactly right, he tried to ease the pressure on her by saying, “Only Christ was perfect.” The second experience was in watching necklaces being strung with colored beads. The colors formed a repeated pattern: black, yellow, white, again and again. The pattern was perfect except for a solitary blue bead, a built-in flaw, spoiling the perfection. The two experiences set her looking for other “blue beads” in the works of artists, deliberate flaws which could serve as reminders that there is no pretense of perfection. She reports finding large numbers of works where patterns are set up and, in what is obviously not just an oversight, the pattern is broken. “Only Christ is perfect.”

Perhaps if our prayers in worship had an occasional “blue bead” to remind us that prayers need not be perfect, our people would feel those prayers as an acknowledgment of and response to their condition. This presupposes that the pattern set up in worship is one of the carefully prepared prayers. While it makes no sense to build in awkward prayers deliberately, it could be helpful to leave open a possibility of a prayer that stumbles. Perhaps one prayer—such as that for illumination or of dedication or one part of the intercessory prayers—could be left open to the moment. Or perhaps the prayers could, from time to time, acknowledge the inadequacy of all our prayers. The hope is that our people learn that prayers can be offered before they are perfected.

Response to God

Dr. Underwood’s first and third guidelines ask us to examine whether our prayers are responses to God and, more specifically, to the God of Scripture. For purposes of brevity, I will treat these two guidelines as one: our prayers need to be authentic responses to the God of Scripture.

The often-heard criticism of “read prayers” by people in the pew needs to be taken seriously. What that criticism longs for is not necessarily a spontaneous bravado in praying or spiritual exhibitionism; it may be asking for some sense that the prayers are an authentic response to God. There are styles of speech and tones of voice which communicate nothing of life and involvement and which signal a mere going through the motions.

It is, I suppose, conceivable to deal with this problem by encouraging certain characteristics of voice and inflection that sound “sincere.” That would run several dangers: trying to create a contrived authenticity and promoting prayer as a performance, among others. The only alternative I can see to that manipulation of prayers is to ask a very personal question of those of us who lead prayers: are our prayers in worship authentic responses to God? In this regard, Dr. Underwood’s “Catch 22” can be paraphrased: there is no prayer in worship that has not begun before worship. If prayer in worship is our only prayer, it has little chance of being authentic. This demands that we pay some attention to the connection between our private life and our prayers in worship. It does not require that this private prayer be perfect or even exemplary; we all share the feeling, I suspect, that our prayer life is inadequate. It does, however, stand as a guideline and challenge: we need not expect that our prayers in worship will be (or will be felt to be) responses to God unless that response is well-practiced in private.

There are various ways to conceive of this continuity between private and public prayers. Some of the variety can be hinted at by looking at three forms of prayers in worship which are spoken by the leader for the people: spontaneous prayer, a prayer written by others, and self-prepared prayer.

Spontaneous Prayers

The dangers of spontaneous prayers are obvious: while they may feel spontaneous to the one praying, they most often sound like a reshuffling of stock prayer clichés; also they tend to overlook important elements in worship prayers because these are not thought of on “the spur of the moment.” Some of those dangers are minimized, however, if spontaneous prayer is part of the private prayer life of the worship leader. In that discipline, a sensitivity that avoids overworked phrases can be developed, and the habits of including the basic elements of prayer can be well-practiced. If spontaneous prayer in worship is not deeply rooted in the long use of this style of prayer, however, it will scarcely seem an authentic response to God.

With spontaneous prayer in worship, the leader also needs to arrange for some feedback from the people in the congregation on how these prayers are being heard. The one who voices an extemporaneous prayer may intend the words one way, but the people can hear them in ways altogether different. For example, persons who use phrases such as “I just want to thank you … ” or “I just pray that … ” may well intend the phrases as efforts at humility, avoiding pretense. These phrases can strike others, however, as calling undue attention to that humility or even as devaluing the reality of the prayer. Feedback as to how prayers are heard is helpful regardless of the form of the prayer; it is crucial when that prayer is spontaneous.

Prayers Written by Others

The dangers of using prayers written by others are easy to name: the temptation to read the words in a rote detachment, using these prayers as a substitute for one’s own life of prayer. However, if the leader’s own prayer life is rich in the use of these prayers by others, then these prayers will likely be alive in worship. A private prayer life that is guided by the prayers of others will discover particular prayers that are more readily made one’s own and certain prayers that will be useful in giving voice to the hurts and hopes of the people. When these prayers have been prayed before, they can certainly be felt as authentic responses to God in worship. This is not to excuse, however, grabbing a book of prayers five minutes before the service and selecting a few we think we didn’t use last week to get us through the prayers of the people.

Self-Prepared Prayers

The discipline of preparing one’s own prayers for worship may have fewer necessary dangers than the other two forms. The most obvious danger is to give the preparation so little time that it consists of little more than a few notes to remind one of who is in the hospital. A second danger, perhaps not frequently encountered but nonetheless real, comes from spending plenty of time on the prayers but making them so self-consciously pretty that attention is called to the words rather than to the focus of prayer. The most frequent offenders are strings of alliterative words that do nothing but show off and analogies so graphic as to be grotesque.

Both of those dangers are avoided when prayer in worship grows out of prayer in private. One way to do that is to use a prayer diary in which are kept phrases, sentences, even full prayers that came out of a particular time of private prayer. Such a diary of prayer can serve as a resource from which to select those elements of prayers that fit in corporate worship.

In preparing one’s own prayers for worship, the writing needs to be done for the spoken content. A part of the writing process involves speaking aloud the written prayers in order to judge, not only if they make sense, but also if they can be when spoken, authentic responses to God and to the people. Spoken tests can be the occasion for inspired revision—and rejection.

The reflections in this article take aim at an event that can not be controlled, manipulated, or guaranteed. The intent and hope is that in our corporate worship the words spoken in prayer may so resonate with the lives of those praying, including the leader, that they claim God’s reality in the present hour and give a faithful response.

History of the Posture of Kneeling for Prayer

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In addition to formal dance, the postures taken for the various acts of worship are an important aspect of movement in worship. Posture both reflects and shapes the attitudes that we bring to worship. One of the most important postures for many Christians in worship is that of kneeling for prayer. This article traces the history of the use of kneeling in worship and commends this practice to all Christians.

Anglicans traditionally kneel to pray, although worshipers in many parishes are now invited to “sit or kneel,” which suggests a growing uncertainty about what is appropriate. Most Protestants sit; some stand; and many of the Nonconformist traditions object to kneeling on the grounds that it is unacceptably ritualistic or Romish or both. Should we, or should we not kneel to pray, and does it matter?

Here is what Screwtape writes to his young charge in C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters: One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray “with moving lips and bended knees” but merely “composed his spirit to love” and indulged “a sense of supplication.” That is exactly the sort of prayer we want.… Clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.

The argument here is that since we are bodily, “animal” creatures, our desires and aspirations necessarily find expression in bodily form. When we are joyful or fearful, sad or angry, we will most naturally seek to manifest this in some appropriate outward and physical fashion. For someone hungry or thirsty it is not enough merely to adopt an attitude of eating and drinking. So also the posture we adopt in prayer is an outward and visible expression of our real (and not just inward!) need for God.

For this reason, although it is of course fundamentally a matter of Christian freedom and discretion rather than of absolute right and wrong, we may be well advised to ask what Scripture and tradition have to say about the appropriate posture for prayer.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament views kneeling as a gesture of humility or of prostration before God or even Baal (1 Kings 19:18) or another figure of authority such as a prophet (2 Kings 1:13). The call to worship in Psalm 95 (the Venite of the traditional liturgy) includes the phrase: “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (v. 6).

Other, similar forms of prostration are found. Abraham’s servant bows his head in worship after being invited to lodge with Rebekah’s family (Gen. 24:26). Joshua and the elders fall on their faces before the ark after being routed at Ai (Josh. 7:6). Elijah on Mt. Carmel bows down to the ground and puts his face between his knees (1 Kings 18:42). Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:18) and Ezra (Neh. 8:6) each lead the people in bowing their heads to the ground in worship. The exilic hope for redemption included the trust that one day “every knee shall bow” to God, in submission and worship (Isa. 45:23); in the New Testament, Paul takes up this hope and applies it to Jesus (Rom. 11:4; 14:11; Phil. 2:10).

Despite Psalm 95, kneeling specifically for prayer or worship is in fact relatively uncommon in the Old Testament. It does, however, occur in three important stories. Solomon prays his prayer of dedication for the new Temple kneeling and with his hands spread up to heaven (1 Kings 8:54; 2 Chron. 6:13). Ezra offers a prayer of repentance on his knees and with his hands spread out to God, because of Israel’s intermarriage with pagans (Ezra 9:5). And three times a day Daniel kneels down in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, to pray and give thanks (Dan. 6:10). There are probably just two instances of “sitting before the Lord” in prayer. After the war against the Benjamites, the children of Israel went up to Bethel, wept, fasted, and sat before the Lord all day (Judges 20:26). David went into the sanctuary and “sat before the Lord” and prayed after Nathan had announced to him God’s everlasting covenant with the house of David (2 Sam. 7:18; 1 Chron. 17:16). This shows that sitting in prayer is not entirely unthinkable for the Old Testament; but it may on the other hand be significant that the same expression (“to sit before” someone) is used elsewhere to denote the attitude of attentiveness which disciples have for their master (2 Kings 4:38; Ezek. 33:31; Zech. 3:8). Our two instances of sitting before the Lord both suggest situations of extended, attentive, listening prayer.

The normal prayer posture in Old Testament times was to stand: Hannah stands at the sanctuary to pray for a son (1 Sam. 1:26); the people of Israel stand to confess and repent of their sins, to read from the Law, and to worship God (Neh. 9:1–3, 5); and numerous other texts speak of standing before God in worship (2 Chron. 20:13, 19; Ps. 24:3, 134:1, 135:2; cf. Lev. 9:5; Jer. 7:10). The Levites stand every morning and evening to thank and praise the Lord (1 Chron. 23:30), as indeed in a wider sense they stand ministering before the Lord (e.g., Deut. 10:8, 17:12, 18:5, 7; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chron. 5:14; 29:11, 35:5; Ezek. 44:15; Luke 1:11; Heb. 10:11). Similarly, Elijah appeals to the authority of the God of Israel “before whom I stand” (1 Kings 17:1, 18:15; cf. 2 Kings 3:14, 5:16). To “stand before” someone was to serve and recognize that person’s authority (e.g. 1 Kings 1:2, 10:8; 2 Chron. 9:7; cf. Zech. 6:5; Luke 1:19, Rev. 20:12), although we also hear repeatedly that humans are not worthy or able to stand before God (1 Sam. 6:20; Ezra 9:15; Job 41:10, Ps. 76:7; 130:3).

Ancient Judaism

The later Jewish literature from the Second Temple period quite consistently suggests that Jews stood for prayer, facing Jerusalem. Solemn prayers for deliverance and penitential prayers, however, were offered while kneeling. In the Prayer of Manasseh, a little gem of intertestamental spirituality, the penitent king will “bend the knee of my heart,” pleading for God’s kindness and forgiveness (v. 11). Similarly, Simon the High Priest prays on his knees and with outstretched hands for help against the invading enemy, Emperor Ptolemy (3 Macc. 2:1). There are various other examples of prostration or kneeling in prayers of confession or desperate need dating from around the time of Christ.

In the emerging liturgy of the synagogue, the main prayer (the Prayer of Eighteen Petitions) was in fact also known as the Amidah, literally, the “standing prayer.” While the daily Shema (“Hear O Israel,” Deut. 6:4) could be recited while traveling or lying down, the Amidah could only be said while standing.

Rabbinic literature, written after the destruction of the Temple, reflects widely on prayer. Prayer was seen as the true service of God, and greater than sacrifice. It must be engaged in from the heart, with earnest intention and concentration; our prayer is not accepted unless we pray with our heart in our hands. Prayer should never become a mindless routine or be done absent-mindedly.

Among the rabbis, standing for prayer is assumed to be the norm. Simon the Pious (fl. c. 200 b.c.) reputedly taught that in prayer God’s very presence stands before us. Rabbi Eliezer (early second-century a.d.) taught his disciples, “When you pray, know before whom you stand!” (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot, 28b). Nevertheless, we are told about the famous Rabbi Akiba (second-century a.d.), who while in public prayer was brief but in private given to much kneeling and prostration.

The New Testament

A similar pattern holds true in the Gospels. Standing in prayer is assumed throughout. Jesus teaches, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25, Mt. 6:25). Even Pharisees and tax collectors stand for prayer in the synagogue (Luke 18:11, 13). The only reference to a kneeling prayer is in Luke’s account of Jesus’ solemn, agonizing struggle with his death in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:41; in Mark 14:35, Jesus prostrates himself on the ground).

In the Acts of the Apostles, however, there are several interesting examples of praying in the kneeling position. As he is being stoned, Stephen kneels down (perhaps involuntarily?) and asks God not to “hold this sin against” his persecutors (Acts 7:60). Peter kneels to pray in the upper room for Dorcas/ Tabitha to be revived (9:40). After Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesians elders, they all get down on their knees to pray (20:36); similarly, the disciples at Tyre kneel down on the beach to pray with Paul and his companions, having escorted them out of the city on their way to Jerusalem (21:5). One other relevant New Testament passage about kneeling is Paul’s prayer that God will powerfully strengthen his readers “through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”; for this prayer, Paul says that he bows his knees before the Father (Eph. 3:14–17). The book of Revelation envisions the angels and the saints standing before God in the heavenly worship (7:9, 11; 8:2, cf. 20:12).

In summing up the biblical and intertestamental evidence, it is probably fair to say that standing to pray was normal, although a kneeling position was assumed for particularly solemn, earnest, or penitential prayers. The function of kneeling seems to be to express humility and prostration before God.

Ancient Christianity

The early church witnessed a further refinement of this view. As the biblical precedent suggests, both standing and kneeling in prayer were practiced. There was at first no uniform custom; in fact, several different prayer postures are attested: standing upright or with the head and back bent forward, kneeling, or fully prostrating oneself face down.

In formal settings, kneeling was primarily reserved for penitential occasions, although informally and in private devotion Christians might kneel more frequently. Writing around the year a.d. 96, Clement of Rome encouraged the church at Corinth to put aside strife and disloyalty and instead to “fall down before the Master, and beseech him with tears that he may have mercy upon us” (1 Clement 48:1). Early church tradition reports of the piety of James the Just (the brother of the Lord) that he “used to enter alone into the Temple and be found kneeling and praying for forgiveness for the people”; we are told that in the course of his constant penitential kneeling on behalf of the people his knees become calloused like those of a camel … ! (Hegesippus, c. a.d. 170, quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2:23:6). The author of the Shepherd of Hermas (c. a.d. 140) repeatedly kneels to confess his sins during his visions (Vision 1:1:3; 2:1:2; 3:1:5; 4:1:7, v. 1). And Origen (c. 185–254) in fact considered kneeling to be a necessary expression of humility and submission for those wanting to confess their sins and to ask God’s forgiveness (On Prayer, 31:3). For the ancient Christian, to kneel was to give outward expression to his or her unworthiness and humility before God.

Other instances of kneeling prayer occur in the context of earnest entreaties in the face of disaster. Tertullian (c. 160–225) and Eusebius (c. 260–340) refer to efficacious kneeling prayer at times of drought, and supplication on one’s knees was also practiced at the time of death or other serious need.

As for corporate worship, the repeated references to church custom in some early writers seem to suggest that kneeling was very much the norm here, too. But although this may have been the case at certain times and places, it would be misleading to assume that kneeling was in fact universally practiced in worship. It is true that for a while the first part of the liturgy was said kneeling, followed by the rest of the service, for which the communicants stood. Catechumens and those not admitted to Communion for reasons of penance had to leave the service after the reading of the Scripture and the kneeling prayer; for this reason, penitents were sometimes referred to as “kneelers” (genuflectentes).

In time, however, an ecumenical consensus emerged that explicitly restricted the occasions on which kneeling for public prayer was permitted. If kneeling is an appropriate bodily sign of penitence and humility, then times of triumph and joy would seem to call for a different posture. Tracing such a custom to the apostles, Irenaeus (c. 130–200) insisted that kneeling is appropriate during the six weekdays as an expression of sinfulness, but on the Lord’s day not kneeling manifests our rising again by the grace of Christ and being delivered from our sins. Others who agree with Irenaeus but ban kneeling both on Sundays and from Easter to Pentecost include Tertullian, Hilary, Epiphanius, Basil, Jerome, Augustine, and numerous later church fathers and canons. In keeping with this consensus, Canon 20 of the Council of Nicaea (a.d. 325) determines that “since there are some who kneel on the Lord’s Day and even during the days of Pentecost, in order that all things should everywhere be uniformly observed it has seemed right to the Holy Synod that prayers to God should be made standing.”

Conclusion

Following biblical precedent, the ancient Christians knelt and stood for prayer. Kneeling was appropriate for confession and for solemn entreaties at times of need. Corporate public worship on Sundays and during the Easter season, however, was offered standing up. “In fact,” says an acknowledged Anglican authority on the matter, “few customs are more frequently mentioned by early Christian writers than the practice of praying in the standing posture” (V. Staley, “Position and Posture of Minister and People,” in George Harford and Morley Stevenson, eds., The Prayer Book Dictionary [London: Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1925], 596).

At the outset, I quoted C. S. Lewis on the subject of kneeling. A rather similar perspective was offered by St. Augustine. God, he says, does not of course need our outward gestures of kneeling, raising our hands, or prostration in order for our hearts to be open to him. Nevertheless, the outward gesture is of great benefit because it helps motivate us to pray more fervently. And although the decision to pray is of course inward and spiritual, the outward and physical motion curiously reinforces our heart’s commitment:

I do not understand why, although these motions of the body cannot be made without a prior act of the mind, nevertheless by performing the outward and visible motions the inward one which caused them is itself increased. Thus, the heart’s affection which caused the outward motions, is itself increased because they are made.

We may of course pray seated if we must, but in any case, the witness of Scripture and of the ancient church should encourage us to think about what we are expressing with our bodies.

Should we kneel to pray? Yes, by all means, let us kneel to ask earnestly for God’s forgiveness and to implore his help in conflict and adversity. And then let us stand, too, to praise and worship for our liberation.

The Nonverbal Languages of Prayer

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When we think of prayer, we probably think of words that we speak, sing, or read. Yet human communication happens as much through nonverbal means as through verbal ones. This article probes the nature and influence of nonverbal communication and argues that it should be intentionally employed in worship.

Not long ago, a well-known magazine carried an article on what happens to Christians who participate in the Eucharist on a regular basis. Its fruits, according to the article, are joy, peace, love, and a sense of union. The editors were surprised to receive letters from many Christians in response to the article reporting that such feelings and participation are often not evoked by the liturgy. The liturgical movement since Vatican II has done much to remedy this situation, yet the problem continues. Today’s Christians are determinedly loyal; many attend worship even though the experience often leads them to frustration, anger, and apathy.

The cause of our frustration lies partially in the way that we are educated. We are the products of a rational, logical, analytic, and scientific culture. Parochial schools, most public schools, and many colleges teach their students to think in only one of two styles of thought. Many people are not even aware of their ability to think and feel in nonverbal ways.

As an art educator, religion teacher, and painter, I have been excited by recent brain research indicating that there are two very different, equally conscious, and cooperative styles of thought in the brain. This research reveals the brain to be two totally conscious, experiencing, expressing halves. The left half, we educate; the right, we don’t. In most people, the left consciousness gets all or most of the educational attention because the brain’s left hemisphere controls our mastery of verbal language, which has often been mistaken as a gauge for intelligence.

Left and Right Hemispheres

Language is a linear, sequential form of expression: one word after another, one sentence after another. It cuts apart whole pictures—for instance, a historical incident—and describes each part one at a time. Isolated sequences are used to describe the people involved, the place, the reasons, the history that led up to the incident, and its results. Chance affairs, perhaps the weather, may have changed things; a book or a certain school may have influenced the participants in earlier years. Family life may have had its effect. In this manner, epic tales of history, philosophy, and theology come to be. To present anything like a whole picture of events and ideas we must build word on word, tome on tome.

The left brain also imagines itself as a detached observer, unclouded by emotion. The left brain is clear and concise, cool and business-like; “business is business” is a typical left-consciousness phrase. The left brain also tends to focus on rules and procedures in its attempt to find cubby-holes for everything and everyone.

The other hemisphere of the brain (usually the right side) is programmed to take in the entire field or “gestalt” of events as they occur. The right brain can absorb the total picture, at once taking in the many influences of a story without dividing the facts or missing important connections. The languages for its fast, detailed, and interconnected grasping have their own styles of expression which are suitable to it and complementary to the other consciousness.

Each half of the brain has direct physical control of the opposite side of the body, coordinating movement and thought through the intimate connections of the bundle of nerves running between them. Until recent times the right side was considered a minor hemisphere because of our cultural bias for verbal language. As it turns out, however, the right hemisphere is programmed for a different operation. In contrast to the sequentially patterned logic of the left brain, the right brain senses shapes, forms, colors, and motions. Its experience in these modes gives rise to the languages we call art.

The right brain’s experiences are sounds, silences, and rhythms. It speaks directly in music. The right brain experiences relationships of the body to other bodies and to tables, chairs, and trees; it speaks in body language and dance. It also experiences emotional relationships. It is imaginative and intuitive, and it can be more spiritually sensitive than its partner, the left hemisphere.

Except in certain areas of the United States, most schools have given short shrift to education in the arts and have played down symbolic, poetic, intuitive styles of thought and action. Yet when it comes to worship, people must cling to natural, holistic styles of expression and to dramatic, symbolic, intuitive, and musical modes. New styles of worship will become more problematic than helpful if art and speech are not equally represented. The acceptance of the vernacular has this danger, that meaning expressed verbally can be represented as more important than being. New understandings of the brain’s native programming and abilities may be able to help Christians appreciate and respond to a more artistic and intuitive worship experience.

Overloading the Verbal

Drawing is a direct expression of the right hemisphere of the brain—one of its many nonverbal languages. Among many adults, it is also an underdeveloped talent. Its repression, a trauma many people experience, has a deep, direct effect on one’s sense of self. For example, if children’s drawings are not accepted as true expressions of their feelings and spirit, they will be disowned. In disowning their own creations, children also lose a sense of their own goodness. It becomes much harder for them really to believe in God’s love and acceptance. Their reactions can’t be put into words; their command of the verbal language is too small.

Adults do not completely express their feelings in words either. There are other languages in our repertory besides the verbal. We have, in fact, overloaded the verbal, powerful as it is. The result is a population with much the same aspect as a stage tree, all leaves and trunk on one side and next to nothing on the other, often needing to be held up by outside structures just to exist.

Often we do not fathom the depth of injury that a one-sided education does to our culture. But many adults now truly believe that they are not artistic. Often in conversation, they will point to some overbearing teacher or older child, even a parent, who strongly criticized or painfully ridiculed their artistic creations. This rejection usually happens at about the third or fourth grade, an age at which children are especially vulnerable.

One person told of painting the mountains she had seen from the sea as she sailed in from her mother’s home island where she had lived all her life. The teacher ridiculed her drawings because her mountains, the only ones she had ever seen, were brown, rounded, and mostly all the same height. Apparently, the teacher imagined that all mountains were snow-covered peaks resembling the Alps or the Rockies. This woman never dared to paint again, although she needed this medium desperately to express some of the later experiences of her life.

A man in early middle age showed me a scar across his right knuckle; the art teacher had used the metal edge of a ruler to register profound disapproval of his drawing of a tree. Both tales are violent, although most of us only recognize the violence in the second one. We often seem not to recognize spiritual and emotional violence.

A wide range of acceptable behavior characterizes our use of art, music, dance, and symbolic imagery, and confidence in these abilities has become imperative for human and spiritual growth. We must gently, but definitely, move away from the overly verbal, logical, and analytical modes of thought—no matter how much we in Western cultures have been steeped in these.

Liturgy is a spiritual experience that comes to us largely through these languages of the right hemisphere: solemn ritual, music, color, poetry, and story. The liturgy calls us to experience a deeply intuitive and personal response to the revelation of God whose word is Jesus Christ. Vestments, banners, and stained glass, the affective and physical poetry of the Psalms and dance, the parables, and stories of salvation history require a response from whole persons. A one-sided emphasis on logical-analytical thought styles can make it difficult for us to feel this involvement. Didactic or doctrinaire styles of preaching and teaching will not help us. Neither will complaints from highly educated and dissatisfied musicians. Unworthy music is a symptom rather than a cause of the problem.

Unless Christians can grow in artistic, intuitive, imaginative, and symbolic styles of thought, participation in the liturgy will fall off and we will once more find ourselves sitting in the back pews watching experts perform the liturgy.

Remedial Measures

Here are a few basic ideas, guidelines, and suggestions that may help us to remedy this need. First, we may want to consider sponsoring a parish program for art education. The arts are the natural basis for spiritual experience. Visual art, poetry, dramatic movement, and music can be more expressive of God’s presence in one’s life than the mere effort to capture this presence in prose. In fact, faith will be more naturally and joyfully articulated as we learn to respond to Christ’s presence in more visual ways. With self-acceptance in a world of colors, shapes, and forms comes an outpouring of joy that is already close to prayer. Thus a parish program for art education will be a program for liturgical renewal as well.

Second, just as we have many names for the Holy One, so there are a variety of artistic styles that express our experience in worship. For many people being good at art means producing a photographic image, but such images are rather the product of machines called cameras. Other kinds of images are possible for the magnificently complicated sensing, responding organism that is the human being. Childlike, impressionistic, and symbolic images may also be good art. We must recognize, therefore, our need for education specialists in the arts. If the parish has a school, or other educational facility or program, it should have no difficulty finding an art teacher for a reasonable salary. Good art teachers do more than conduct classes; they also help us discover the art that is part of daily parish life.

Third, music and harmonious movement are also valuable expressions of spiritual truth. Certainly, music, as well as art, needs to be taught, recognized, and affirmed as a part of daily life. Too often we concentrate so hard on concert performers that children who are not musically gifted are neglected. Then, just as the visual and musical art media are natural tools for comfortable expression in everyday life, so is the body a natural medium for direct expression. Some excellent dance or movement therapists and teachers live in large parishes. If teachers are not available locally, perhaps some of the music, dance, drama, or art teachers in the public schools can be invited in for some experimental sessions.

All teachers, whether they are parishioners or visitors, will need some materials on the liturgy. If they are good at their work and sensitive, they will be able to put liturgy and art together with their own knowledge and skills to help fulfill the needs of the worship assembly. Art educators and music educators are aware of the naturalness of these expressions.

Whether the programs focus on visual art, music, or motion, teachers and students will need to recognize the self-critical, self-conscious fears of most people. Whatever our expertise in other areas—we may be engineers, counselors, mechanics, nurses, priests or parents—rejection of the right hemisphere’s natural use is endemic to our modern American culture. Perhaps the rush of the young to loud, overwhelming music, drugs, and alcohol reflects the extent of our problem. The back-to-basics movement and our current romance with science, computers, and budget resolutions must not be allowed to make matters worse. We must be careful not to present the arts as second-rate.

The sacramental life is a long series of actions and symbols, a combination of the verbal and nonverbal expressions of a community’s spiritual experience. The arts can help us to be more easily and joyfully attuned to the rituals that open us to this presence of God in the life of the church.

Getting the Most out of Rehearsals

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Many churches ask for some practical ideas for their worship team rehearsals. Often, these practice sessions become mundane and boring. I don’t necessarily have the final word on how to handle these sessions, but here are a few practical tips.

One of the major questions asked is, “How often should we get together as a team?” There are no right and wrong answers to this question, since there are so many variables involved. It must be determined by your situation. But once-a-week practice works best in most cases. It is difficult to work together musically in a given service if you are not very familiar with one another’s abilities and musical styles. The ability to “flow” together as a team is made possible largely by working together often. Without this regular interaction it will be difficult, at best, to be “tight” musically.

The length of the practice session should also be determined by your particular circumstances. A team of two musicians will probably not require as much time for rehearsal as a thirty-piece orchestra. Remember, then, that as your team grows, your practices may need to be longer. Don’t lock yourself into a certain practice length now and, if and when you change it, end up with disgruntled musicians. Let them know that there may come a time when your preparation sessions may have to change.

Another common question is, “What should we do at our rehearsals?” On the surface, the answer would seem obvious. However, by looking a little further, one can turn up some hidden ideas. Several are listed below, but keep in mind that all of these do not necessarily need to be a part of every practice. They can be intermixed and used at appropriate times to accomplish the necessary agenda.

Worship. This is an often overlooked part of the practice time. It is difficult to lead in worship on Sunday mornings as a team if we never worship together at any other time. Our job is not just to provide a musical background whereby others may worship—we are to be the leaders in worship. If our times of preparation consist only of “playing music” and not actually worshiping God ourselves, we are sending the wrong message to our musicians. We are telling them that the music aspect is more important than what is coming from the heart. Spending time in worship together as a team is vital.

Prayer. This, too, is frequently left out of many practice times. We should take time to pray for one another, for the congregation, for the pastor, and for other concerns. Pray and seek God’s direction together for a particular service or series of services. All of these are important in building team unity.

As the leader, it is necessary to strike a balance in your own participation in the times of prayer. You should be an example for the others in prayer, but don’t make it your time of prayer. Don’t spend the entire time praying aloud and not allow the others to pray also. Encourage them to make their requests known to God (Phil. 4:6).

Learning New Music. Finally, we get to what everyone thinks practices are all about. Please keep in mind, though, that this is number three on the list.

When attempting to learn new songs, it is usually best to have music for all musicians. Some may be able to share, but asking twelve musicians to gather around one hand-scrawled 3″ x 5″ note card is a little too much.

Some teams prefer to have separate vocalist and instrumentalist sessions when learning new songs. This helps them learn vocal harmonies and various instrumental parts without interfering with one another. This, again, will depend upon your particular situation.

One important note on this: always try to learn a song thoroughly before using it corporately. This can save a great deal of embarrassment for everyone. At the same time, it should be understood that working on a given song for months without using it for a corporate service can be very frustrating to the worship team members.

Reviewing Old Songs. This is especially important if you add new people to your worship team. Most people simply assume that the new people know all the old music. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. It is good to have a “working list” of songs and occasionally be certain that everyone on the team is familiar with all of these.

It is also worthwhile to sometimes take an old song and do a new musical arrangement for it. This can go a long way toward bringing new life to something old.

Evaluate Previous Service(s). This can be very helpful as long as you don’t become scrupulous. Looking at what you did musically as well as considering the overall response can be beneficial for future reference. This is not so you can repeat something that worked but to evaluate why things happened as they did and what could have been done differently. This is not a time to be super-critical. Simply look at what happened for the purpose of learning. A great deal can be learned from sincere evaluation.

Introducing Special Music. These songs usually involve a bit more work than the praise and worship songs. This is, in part, because the special music is often more intricate, but also because the congregation will not be singing; they’ll only be listening. Most churches will spend more time “polishing” their special music.

These ideas are not necessarily all-inclusive. There are probably numerous other practical suggestions that you know about or are presently using. Potentially all of these can be used in one form or another.

It is important to maintain the interest and the enthusiasm of your musicians on an ongoing basis. By doing this, you’ll have a more contented and productive worship team.