Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

A decade ago, Sam Wells and Abigail Kocher offered a book, Shaping the Prayers of the People: The Art of Intercession. It inspires clergy and laypersons to craft prayers for public worship on Sunday mornings. It encourages an integration of the Scripture readings of the day, the cares and concerns of the world and of the people gathered. It favors deep intentionality over spontaneous prayers. It recommends that the clergy and the layperson who will be leading the prayers in the Sunday ahead meet during the week to prayerfully consider that integration and focus.

I experienced such lay-written prayers of the people, born of a care-full collaboration between the priest and the lay intercessor at Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville, North Carolina. The roteness of the usual call and response gave way to a blending of the familiar format with the specificity of our time and place. Prayers offered on our behalf, our souls awakened.

Yet, as compelling and uplifting as these prayers can be, not every congregation has laity who are called to that kind of composition. Competing priorities can also, regretfully, make it a challenge for clergy to devote time each week to the craft.

A different, equally compelling, and more outwardly participatory approach to the prayers is offered each Sunday at the 9 AM liturgy at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Durham, North Carolina. There, as the people enter, they are offered a service guide, a pencil and a 3x4” piece of paper. On one side of the paper is printed, “I ask help for” and on the other side, “I give thanks for”.

The liturgy commences, and through the silence, gathering hymn, Collect, readings, even the sermon, the people are encouraged to fill in the remainder of the sentences with their own intercessions and thanksgivings, as they are led.

After the Creed, the Prayers of the People are offered by a lay person at the lectern. The form of the prayers varies from one season to another, with a response to each bidding chanted or sung by the congregation. Intentionally, this sung response is a simple line, easily learned, easily repeated. In recent seasons they have included:

- Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus. (in Epiphany) tune from Hymnal 1982, # 490
- God of mercy, make us new. (in Lent) tune from Hymnal 1982, # 150
- God is so good from LEVAS
- Hear our prayer, O Lord from LEVAS
- O Lord hear our prayer from WLP

There’s a basket on a small table in front of the altar, which is set on the same level as the congregation. During the sung responses, members of the congregation – children, elders, and all ages in between – come forward and offer their prayer requests, putting them in the basket. A priest then carries the basket to the lay leader in time for the intercessions, and the biddings are read. We hear: We ask God’s help for…. My grandmother, who is sick, my husband, my son who is looking for a job, the safe birth of my baby, peace in Israel and Palestine, peace in Sudan, for those who are running for political office, for those recovering from the hurricane…

At the end of all these intercessions, we sing the response. Then: We give God thanks for… grandparents, grandchildren, a new job, my dogs, my guinea pigs. We give thanks for the people gathered, for a place to gather, for rain, for sun, for music….

The biddings are spontaneous, yes, but always brief and contained by the format. And as each intercession, each thanksgiving, is offered, the person, young or old, who wrote that one down feels the congregation praying on their behalf. At the same time, the congregation realizes the prayer requests of the people around them, and our souls are awakened.

Sometimes a prayer evokes a smile, sometimes a sadness, sometimes a reminder. Always they draw the people closer together, and they draw the people to God. These are the people’s prayers.