worship

The Worship Environment at Christmas

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Will the parish Christmas decorations show good liturgical sense? Here are some guidelines for planning the worship environment for the Christmas season.

Decorations should not be limited to the area around the altar, ambo (pulpit), and chair. To do so creates a stage setting. Keep this area free from distraction by limiting the floral arrangements around the altar and by placing crèche figures elsewhere. Hackneyed decorations, such as masses of poinsettias or wreaths hung on every pillar, though beautiful in themselves, can have a numbing effect. Such overkill also obscures what these decorations signify.

First determine how you will embellish the assembly area, especially in the space over everyone’s heads. Then determine where more “intimate,” deeply traditional elements will be put—an apple-hung fir tree, a large suspended globe of intersecting wreaths, a place for the icons of the Christmastime feasts, the Bethlehem scene. These things are best located where they can be visited and contemplated before or after worship—near the baptistery or the gathering area or a shrine.

The most serious problem facing all parish ministers in preparing the Christmas season is the schizophrenia of the parish in early January when its church building is clad in red, white, and green but the homes of the parishioners (and the parish school) have already been stripped of their finery. Under such circumstances, worship is a sham. Liturgical ministers can’t begin to do their jobs unless they also help the parish live the Christian calendar at home as well as in church.

Wasting money and resources on decorations is certainly offensive. However, equally offensive is the notion that miserliness in worship somehow reflects the gospel. The gospel doesn’t demand that we pretend to be poor, but that we break down the barriers between rich and poor. If ethnic customs are any gauge, the poor know the value of flamboyant festival excess. Communal celebration means the pooling of resources to enable those who live in everyday simplicity to share in festival abundance. Fasting begets feasting. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge celebrations by the money spent but by the efforts invested by rich and poor alike, all made able to contribute their gifts and talents to one another.

The whole notion of decorating for Christmastime creates unique problems with few easy solutions. For example, at this season, any exceptional effort in liturgy, such as fine music or decorations, has the potential for coming off as just another holiday extravaganza. Yet Christmastime, especially in its full flowering at Epiphany, calls forth the “brightest and best” the parish can muster (although that should never turn into something pompous or triumphalistic).

The evergreens, flowers, or lights—anything you might use to grace Christmas worship—runs the risk of reminding people of a shopping mall, of appearing to glorify money and power. Ironically, the more beautiful and well-executed the Christmas worship environment is, the more it is likely to remind some parishioners of commercial displays. This is an unsolvable dilemma, exacerbated by many Christians’ lack of appreciation for their own symbols.

Opening Up Our Images

Environment ministers—those folks entrusted with the care and keeping of the material things of the liturgy—have a responsibility to open up for parishioners the meaning of the images of Christmas. While trees, wreaths, lights, and holiday foods we see everywhere in December have various meanings to many people, we often forget that Christians have found specifically Christian meanings in these symbols and held them dear for centuries.

If we ask ourselves what a tinseled tree or an evergreen wreath or even a plum pudding has to do with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, we’re likely to be stymied. But if we ask what these things have to do with the union of heaven and earth, with time dissolving into timelessness, with the everlasting presence of Emmanuel, God with us, then perhaps we will find our answers.

The bright tree is our return to paradise. With greenery and flowers, winter melts into Eden’s endless spring. Fruit cakes represent the harvest of justice. Eggnog is the milk and honey of the promised land. Sending cards hastens the ingathering of all people. Mistletoe heralds the coming of the Prince of Peace. Lights strung around our doors welcome all the world to the homecoming of heaven.

Each of these holy signs can offer comfort and joy, and they can also offer a tremendous challenge. Like the prophets, like John raging in the wilderness, our Christmas symbols can threaten us to open our doors to those who have no feast, to restore this good earth to the freshness of Eden, to labor long to bring about the reign of justice and compassion. Holy signs are always a two-edged sword.

Even the crèche is not so much a representation of a birth long ago and far away, but the birth that is to be, of the “hopes and fears of all the years,” when the poor and the rich will stand side by side with animals and angels, offering themselves each to the other, lost in wonder and praise, the circle of the saints surrounding the Lamb.

The Use of the Arts in Christmas Worship

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The arts during Christmas may symbolize the Incarnation and thus speaks in a profound way to the meaning of “God with us.” Adapt the suggestions below to local customs.

1. The greening of the church done for Advent remains through the Christmas season.

2. The Advent wreath remains hung during Christmas with all five candles lit. Adorn the wreath with a Christmas bow and change all the candles to white.

3. Dramatize the lighting of the five candles as a symbol of the presence of Christ at the beginning of the service by using the Service of the Light for the Acts of Entrance.

4. Make both the processional and the recessional expressions of great joy with persons bearing banners, crosses, incense, and with dancers who express the great joy of Christmas.

5. Proclaim one of the Scripture readings with drama, storytelling, or creative antiphonal reading.

6. For Christmas Eve, incorporate the blessing of the crèche.

Using Poetry in Worship

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As a highly compact form of speech capable of stimulating the imagination, poetry can be effectively used in almost any of the various dimensions or acts of public worship. This article catalogs a variety of ways that poetry can be used in worship and gives guidelines to worship planners for selecting poems and readers.

When we come together to worship God, we are participating in an ancient ritual expressed through many traditions. The unifying factor is that we come as God’s children to enter into a dialogue with him.

Though our worship may be experienced and expressed in various ways, a major dimension of worship is verbal. We hear God speak through his Word and through the words of his people. We respond in words and songs of praise and thanksgiving as well as confession and supplication. While many of the words come directly from Scripture, we often use words from other sources, including the words that spring from our own hearts and minds. The songs we sing, the prayers we pray, a call to confession, a litany of praise, an introduction to an offering, or a parting blessing—all of these may be human compositions of language used for divine worship. At its best, the language for such various elements of the worship service is thoughtful, artful, and edifying. Though this language need not be poetry, carefully selected poems can at times significantly serve the verbal dimensions of worship.

Poetry, by nature, is writing that articulates a concentrated experience or emotion or thought through image, sound, and rhythm. Like all arts—music, visual arts, dramatic arts—poetry is a creative gift from God that can be used to edify God’s people and glorify the Creator. The Bible gives us many examples. The Book of the Psalms, the Bible’s richest source of poetry, gives expression to a wide range of emotions, experiences, and thoughts (a point Luci Shaw makes in her “Poetry’s Permanence: the Psalms”). Poetry is also found in Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and other prophetic books, and occasionally in the New Testament, as in 2 Timothy and the glorious prose-poem of 1 Corinthians 13. These are God-inspired examples that give evidence of the wealth and uses of poetic language.

The hymns of the church offer another rich example of poetry used in worship. The case has been made in other places for the use of hymns (in addition to the singing of psalms) in the church. Many of our favorite hymns were originally written simply as poetry and set to music much later. We may think, therefore, of religious poetry as an unsung hymn, appropriate for adoration, celebration, thanksgiving, invitation, supplication, and confession.

But a good poem can also serve other purposes in worship. It can powerfully present the truth of human experience. It can make an old truth new again. It can so dramatically render an implication of God’s truth that none can fail to listen. In all these ways and others, poetry can fulfill a sermonic function in worship.

There are many ways, then, to use poetry in worship. Poetry can be incorporated occasionally within any general service, or it can occasionally serve as the primary verbal medium of the service.

The Occasional Uses of Poetry in Worship

It’s possible to find a poem whose rich imagery, poignant emotion, or profound thought expresses a particular idea so well that it could almost constitute the sermon. But it might be most appropriate to use such a poem as a complement to the sermon. The poem, such as the following, could serve as an introduction to the theme or as an opener for the sermon, or it could be used within the sermon as an illustration or clincher for a point made, or it could be used at the end to reinforce the main thrust of the sermon or to bring it into sharper focus.

I’m Tired

i’m tired, so tired
i can’t …
oh Lord, i can’t go on.
i’m going down
and i’ll never rise again.
what use am I
if i am lying in the dust?
if i am fallen in the pit?
are you tired indeed?
then come to me
for i am meek and lowly.
and if you would have rest,
then come to me
in lowliness of heart,
and i will give you
my precious burden
my easy yoke
for it is never you who till alone
nor carry by yourself.
so come to me
and i will give you a parched
and thirsty land to till
and i will give you rest. (Debbie Wallis)

There are many fine poems that were inspired by certain verses from Scripture or by certain biblical characters. If those verses or characters are key to the theme of the service, either the sermon or the reading of Scripture might be enhanced by an accompanying poem, such as “Prophecy” by Luci Shaw. Some poems also work very well paired with certain songs and hymns; for instance, George Herbert’s poem “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” could be used to introduce the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”

Special events such as baptisms and professions of faith offer unique opportunities for the use of poetry. For example, when a child named Blake was baptized, his aunt read “The Lamb” by poet William Blake as part of the baptismal ceremony. An appropriate poem read by a special person (as is true of a special musical selection) can add both significance and emotional impact to the occasion.

There are a number of good poems about the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper service. Some might work well as an introduction to the service of communion; others might be appropriate as an offering of praise at the conclusion of the feast. Madeleine L’Engle’s “After the Saturday Liturgy at Montfort” might be a fitting poem to use in this context, or “Covenant Celebration” by Nancy Todd.

In addition to being used to accompany or complement various elements of the service, poetry can also be used in place of a particular element. A good example of this is the offering of prayer. Prayer can be taken directly from Scripture, the words of a song (even the singing of a song can be a prayer), the words of St. Augustine or other Christian writers, the original words of the person praying—and from poetry. Examples from literary history abound, from Donne’s “Batter My Heart” to e.e. cummings’ “i thank you God.” But poems can substitute for other elements of the service as well. A poem may serve as an invocation or call to confession or assurance of pardon, as Carlisle’s poem illustrates:

Next of Kin

God remembers our structure and our texture our congruity with the grass our continuity with the dust. More than a father feels for his children He senses our need. Even when we are too foolish to fear or heed Him He keeps His love invariably available. (Thomas John Carlisle)

Expressions of praise and thanksgiving can come from the wealth of poetry that celebrates God’s creation or His work in the human heart. Such poems might also be used as a response of gratitude or poetic offering (like a musical offering along with the offering of monetary gifts). “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins is one that might work well; another possibility is “Individuation” by Nancy Thomas. There are even good benedictory poems that could be fitting at the conclusion of the service. Clearly, possibilities for the occasional use of poetry in worship are numerous.

Primary Uses of Poetry in Worship

Services can also be designed with poetry as a primary verbal expression. This can be done especially effectively within a particular liturgical season. Some of the most profound poetry deals with the suffering and sacrifice of Christ; carefully selected pieces can be combined with Scripture readings and music for a moving and meaningful service during Lent. Other poems are very appropriate for use in special services around Easter and Christmas.

There may be other occasions in which poetry can be a key ingredient of the service: the celebration of a church anniversary; a prayer day; a service with a biblical theme such as God’s creation, sins of the flesh, the parable of the sower, or a Bible character. For example, the poems of Thomas John Carlisle in You! Jonah! could shape the design of a service about Jonah.

For any of these services, the planners must consider the congregation’s interest and aptitude for poetry and allow that to guide both the number and type of poems used in a particular service. A worship service that consisted entirely of poetry would perhaps be neither judicious nor theologically sound. But if the poems are carefully selected and paired with readings from Scripture and appropriate songs (whether for choral or congregational singing) into a seamless worship experience, members of the congregation may discover in new ways the power of God’s word and his gift of language.

Considerations for Selection of Poetry and Readers

Careful selection is critical to the successful use of poetry in worship. The primary consideration should be the thematic appropriateness of the poem. A pastor’s favorite poem may not fit well into a particular service even though he or she may be tempted to make it fit. But a poem that does not enhance or enrich the thematic center of the service forfeits its function.

Many fine poems do not lend themselves to oral presentation. They are difficult to read aloud, difficult to listen to, and difficult to understand. Therefore, poetry for use in worship must be chosen for its readability, listenability, and comprehensibility.

This means that the language of worship poetry should be fairly contemporary and concrete. Imagery should have the power to engage the listeners’ imagination readily. The rhythm should be close to that of natural speech. End rhyme, if it’s there at all, should not be forced or artificial. Poems should not be so long as to become taxing to listen to. In sum, the best poems for oral interpretation in worship are those which evoke and enrich genuine experience within a spiritual context.

There may be only a few gifted poetry readers in any congregation. The people who actually read the poems aloud in a worship service should be carefully chosen and given ample opportunity for oral rehearsal, ideally with the help of a qualified coach. A reader should prepare thoroughly for the presentation of the poems and consider such aspects of delivery as these: poetry should be read at a pace that gives time for the images to take shape in the listener’s imagination; the lines should be read according to the phrasing of ideas, not according to the length of the lines; the appropriate use of pauses and stresses for emphasis is crucial to conveying the ideas or emotions of the poem.

It is usually preferable not to print the text of the poems in the liturgy or bulletin because the poems will be better understood by hearing them read well than by reading them for oneself. When a service is planned which incorporates several poems, it might be helpful to provide copies of the poems after the service (making sure to follow any copyright rules) for those people who will appreciate being able to read the poems for further reflection.

Hymns as Poetry in Worship

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The most common use of poetry in worship is the singing of poems as hymns. Despite their common use, however, hymn texts are rarely thought of in terms of their poetic qualities. Yet hymn writers are among the finest wordsmiths the church has known. Appreciating their art enriches the experience of all who sing.

Hymns are usually seen as low art and sub-zero theology. Theologians file them under “music.” Literature departments file them nowhere. C. S. Lewis detested them. John Ruskin described hymns of his own day as “half-paralytic, half profane,” consisting partly of the expression of what the singers never in their lives felt, or attempted to feel, and partly in the address of prayers to God, which nothing could more disagreeably astonish them than His attending to.

I want to suggest that at its best, the hymn is a complex minor art form, combining theology, poetry, and music. As such it merits attention from theologians and artists alike. But first I must admit the truth in the criticisms. Hymn-texts range from doggerel to poetry, just as hymn tunes range from cliché to classic. Yet we have moved on from the hymnody that repelled Ruskin and Lewis. Since 1960 there has been an explosion of new hymn writing in the English-speaking world, beginning in Britain and spreading to Canada and the United States. Its styles range from praise music through folk song to the classic stanza form, reborn in contemporary English. I work at the latter end of the spectrum and do theology through the hymn-poems I write.

At their best, hymns are a complex art form. When read aloud, as a poem, a hymn text is time art. Each reading is similar, yet unrepeatable. When the poem is sung as a solo or choral item, it moves the listener as songs do. When sung by a congregation, it invites commitment. Though some congregations behave as if they didn’t have bodies, singing together is an intensely corporeal, as well as corporate, activity. Diaphragm, lungs, larynx, tongue, lips, jawbone, nasal cavities, ribcage, shoulders, eyes, and ears come into play. When body attitude combines with deepest beliefs, singers are taken out of themselves into a heightened awareness of God, beauty, faith, and each other. Finally, hymns deserve to be seen as visual art: like other poems, their appearance on the page enhances their attractiveness or detracts from it.

As a writer of hymn texts, I am a theological poet serving church congregations. The title “poet” once seemed pretentious. I claim it now because I’ve repeatedly seen the power of hymn-poetry to move people at a deep level. I have also gathered evidence showing how strongly our language habits shape thinking and behavior so that the way we sing about God and each other is cardinally important. The hymn is an art form through which a congregation expresses and commits itself to a theology. Sunday by Sunday, most Christian traditions sing their faith and are shaped by what they sing. It is therefore a great mistake to classify hymns as “church music,” as if they only mattered to singers, choir directors, and organists. They matter to preachers, theologians, and anyone concerned with the interplay between theology and the arts.

Good hymns are theological poetry, not theology in bad verse. The classic hymn poem is formally strict, with exact meter, stress-rhythms, and usually rhyme in each succeeding stanza. It needs imagery and phrasing clear enough to grasp at first sight (singers can’t stop to look in the dictionary), yet memorable enough to give pleasure and meaning through repeated singing. It cannot give free rein to the poet’s imagination because it is poetry in the service of its singers. The singers of hymns need poetry that will express their faith and enable them to be truthfully themselves as twentieth-century worshipers in the presence of God. The greatest compliment a hymn poet earns is an unspoken YES from singers who grasp, delight, and identify with the hymn-poem in the immediacy of singing it, yet rarely know or care who wrote the words or composed the tune.

As with any art form, these restrictions both cramp creativity and enable it. The possibilities of the form are exemplified by Thomas Troeger’s hymn, “These Things Did Thomas Count as Real.” The briefest analysis of this poem would note its strong visual and tactile imagery (stanza 1); its economic use of paradox and antithesis (stanzas 2 and 3); its full, apt rhymes (including the brilliant “Braille/nail”); its careful attention to stress and sound sequence; and the achievement of all this in sixteen eight-syllable lines which evoke the story yet break it open afresh. Read aloud, it compels attention. Sung, we find ourselves critiquing Thomas while stepping into his psyche so that Christ’s “raw imprinted palms” reach out to us and question our post-Enlightenment assumptions about reality.

An example of my own work is a wedding hymn (No. 643 in the new United Methodist Church hymnal), written for a well-known folk tune for ease of immediate singing. Its four-syllable lines compel simplicity since it is hard to be polysyllabic in such a short line. I wanted to sing truthfully about some of the experiences of partners in a long-term relationship. The first stanza came quickly, appearing almost fully formed in consciousness;

When love is found / and hope comes home,
sing and be glad / that two are one.
when love explodes / and fills the sky,
praise God and share / our Maker’s joy.

“When love explodes and fills the sky” is a simple but strong metaphor. It may derive from firework displays, but the allusion is indirect, enabling me to crystallize varied experiences in one phrase. People know what it means for them when they look in the crystal.

I then had to decide where the hymn was going. What I had already suggested was that the first line of each stanza could set out the theme developed within it, which led to the following outline:

—When love is found …
—When love has flowered …
—When love is tried …
—When love is torn …
—Final wrap-up stanza of praise.

In the second stanza, I wanted to avoid a cozy image of the home as a private castle, so I tried alternatives till I got the lines “that love may dare/to reach beyond home’s warmth and light/to serve and strive for truth and right.” The third stanza recognizes that personalities change over time so that relationships have to be restructured or broken. The fourth stanza deals with betrayal. I can’t remember how long I waited for “when love is torn” to appear as its first line, but there was some waiting time between deciding on the theme and getting that first line. Finding the rhyme fade/betrayed also took time, and involved listing some of the possible rhyme words and trying out phrases. I was aware of quoting from 1 Corinthians 13 in the New English Bible in lines 3 and 4. At some point, I opted for the relaxed rhyme scheme ABCB that came with the first stanza.

Love Song

When love is found and hope comes home,
sing and be glad that two are one.
When love explodes and fills the sky,
praise God and share our Maker’s joy.

When love has flowered in trust and care,
build both each day that love may dare
to reach beyond home’s warmth and light,
to serve and strive for truth and right.

When love is tried as loved-ones change,
hold still to hope though all seems strange,
till ease returns and love grows wise
through listening ears and opened eyes.

When love is torn and trust betrayed,
pray strength to love till torments fade,
till lovers keep no score of wrong
but hear through pain love’s Easter song.

Praise God for love, praise God for life,
in age or youth, in husband, wife.
Lift up your hearts. Let love be fed
through death and life in broken bread.
(Copyright 1983 by Hope Publishing
Company, Carol Stream, Ill. 60188. All
rights reserved. Used by permission.)

The writing process always has this partnership between rational and intuitive. Metaphors and phrases have to be set in order, rhymes collected and selected. Ideas must be clarified, then wait for the appearance of suitable phrases and metaphors. “Appearance” is itself a metaphor, suggesting the way in which phrases come to consciousness from the part of the mind which constructs them, and which is outside conscious control. Though much theology is still done as if we were talking heads inhabited by controlling rationality, the creative process shows otherwise. I am emboldened to question the patriarchal dualisms of our culture (mind over body, reason/logic over imagination/feeling, man over nature, the masculine over the feminine, and the root dominance of men over women) because they are not only dangerous and unjust but untrue to the creative experience.

I said earlier that like other forms of poetry, hymns are visual art. Most Americans never see the poetry of hymns, because the only way they encounter them is with their poetic structure dismantled, the words cut into syllables and interlined (arranged between musical staves for ease of singing). Thankfully, the needs of an aging population are obliging hymnal producers to provide large-print editions, in which the poetry of hymns is once again seen on the page. Christian educators will find this makes poems easier to teach. Pastors and congregations will find hymns more readily available as poetry, fit for public reading (by solo voice or the congregation) and devotional use, and beautiful to look at: an art form in their own right, and a useful part of seminary courses labeled “Introduction to Theology.”

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.