Praying in Public (eBook)

A Guidebook for Prayer in Corporate Worship

Pat Quinn (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
176 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-7292-0 (ISBN)

Infos

A Comprehensive Guide to Corporate Prayer  God commands his people to pray together and answers graciously when they do. The Bible specifically calls on church leaders to guide this essential form of corporate worship, but it can be challenging to pray boldly and confidently in front of others. This practical, step-by-step guide was created to help pastors and church leaders pray thoughtfully and biblically in public. Through seven guiding principles, Pat Quinn illustrates how to lead prayers of adoration, confession, and supplication to God, and covers the history of public prayer in Scripture. He also includes elegant, reverent, gospel-centered examples from the Latin Liturgy, John Calvin, the Puritans, John Wesley, and others, as well as many examples of his own congregational prayers. Pastors and church leaders will learn to glorify God more passionately, effectively intercede for the church and the world, and find joy-not fear-in praying publicly.

Pat Quinn (MA, Calvin College) is director of counseling ministries at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, where he also serves as an elder and teacher. Quinn led worship at University Reformed Church for several decades, composing many worship songs and congregational prayers. Pat is married to Judie, and they have two grown children.

Textauszug

1

Adoration, Confession, and Supplication

Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. . . . But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. . . . But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. . . . Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.

Nehemiah 9:5–6, 16–17, 32

Comprehensive Biblical Prayer

This prayer of the Levite leaders of Israel after the wall was rebuilt in Jerusalem is notable in that it contains adoration (“Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessings and praise”), confession (“But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments”), and supplication (“Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us”). As such, it is a good model for those who lead and pray in worship services. The point is not that each prayer needs to include all three but that all three should be the steady diet for worship services. While there are other types of prayers that are appropriate in a service (calls to worship, offering prayers, prayers for illumination, Communion prayers, hymns, benedictions, and specific occasion prayers), they are all variations on these three main types.1 Let’s look briefly at each of these three types of prayer.

Adoration

Wholehearted admiration, honor, and love for God are foundational to our relationship with him. They reflect the beauty of his character and the essence of who we were created to be—worshipers. Adoration is the first and most basic kind of prayer. This was especially true before the fall. Imagine the joyful intimacy Adam and Eve experienced with “the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8) before the awful intrusion of sin. How their hearts would have continually overflowed with glad adoration in the Father’s presence and provision.

Even after the disruption of sin, God’s grace has motivated countless prayers of adoration throughout history. In fact, we have more reason to thank and praise God as redeemed sinners than if we had never fallen! So it is fitting that the psalms and prayers of the church are full of captivated hearts overflowing with passionate devotion to God. I especially love Psalm 36, where David writes,

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;

your judgments are like the great deep;

man and beast you save, O Lord.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light do we see light. (Ps. 36:5–9)

Two things stir my heart here. One is that David intimately knows and passionately loves a beautiful God. He is intoxicated by the glory of the Lord. Second, David describes this beautiful God with beautiful words. This exquisite imagery not only informs the mind but enflames the heart with adoration. The “sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. 23:1) is a skillful worshiper and worthy model of adoration.

Confession

If adoration is the most basic and appropriate posture of man before God, confession of sin is the most basic posture for fallen man. Since Genesis 3 we cannot rightly think about or approach God except as redeemed sinners.

Several writers have lamented the increasing superficiality of many evangelical worship services. To use an old word, many services lack gravitas. Why is this? Of course our entertainment-driven and media-saturated culture bears some of the blame, but I believe there is a deeper reason. Many churches have lost a sense of the holiness of God and the horror of sin. Therefore, corporate confession doesn’t seem like an important element of worship. Where is Isaiah’s “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” and “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:1, 5)?

We need to be reminded often that sin against a holy God is not merely making mistakes or breaking some rules; it is blasphemy (we set ourselves up as rival gods), treason (we rebel against the only legitimate authority . . . in wartime!), adulterous betrayal (we regularly cheat on our divine bridegroom), corruption (our uncleanness stinks to high heaven), and contempt (we despise the Lord who created and redeemed us). Sin, both original and actual, is serious and, even though we have been born again and become new creations, we have much to confess every day.

Please understand: this is not to encourage pathological self-hatred or abject despair, but to “come clean” with God (Ps. 51:1–2), to receive afresh his wondrous love and forgiveness (Ps. 130:7–8), and to get on with growing in love for him and our neighbors (Col. 3:12–13). Public confession is an opportunity each week for a congregation of redeemed sinners to get back in touch with reality and revel in the unsearchable riches of Christ. Biblical confession is always done in the context of the gospel and is usually followed by a clear and life-giving assurance of pardon. What a joy to hear “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isa. 6:7).

So while some would say that including confession in our worship services is negative and damaging to self-esteem, the truth is that without a time of confession, a worship service has no real integrity.

Supplication

This is the relatively easy part, right? Prayers of petition and supplication are the prayers we pray most naturally, both personally and corporately.2 We know we are needy, and we know God graciously invites us to bring these needs to him (Matt. 7:7–11). Even better, we know he promises to supply all our needs in Christ (Phil. 4:19). So we pray. However, because this kind of prayer comes so naturally, it is important to make sure our supplications are balanced with adoration and confession. This will keep us from the “grocery list” syndrome of merely praying for our felt needs.

We need to be aware of another prayer imbalance as well. In his book Speaking Truth in Love, biblical counselor David Powlison encourages us to pray three types of supplications: prayers to change circumstances, prayers to change us, and prayers to change everything.3 We could call them circumstantial, transformational, and kingdom prayers. We tend to major in circumstantial prayers (i.e., prayers for healing, travel mercies, marital or work or school issues, etc.), minor in transformational prayers (especially if the circumstantial prayers aren’t answered!), and take a pass on kingdom prayers. It’s important that public prayer include all three types of supplications for the health of the church and the effectiveness of her mission.

The Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9–13 is a model of clear, concise, and comprehensive prayer. Notice how Jesus touches on kingdom requests first, circumstantial second, and transformational third.

Pray then like this:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Adoration, confession, supplication. Remembering and practicing these three essential types of prayer will protect us from the imbalance that often skews our prayers, promote more mature discipleship, and help leaders “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12).

Reflection

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Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.7.2021
• Vorwort: Kevin DeYoung
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Liturgik / Homiletik
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Schlagworte: Bible study • body Christ • Christian theology • Church • congregation • Discipleship • Faith • Gospel • membership • ministry • Mission • Pastoral Resources • Prayer • Small group books • Sunday school • Tim Keller
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-7292-3 / 1433572923
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-7292-0 / 9781433572920