How Not to Pray in Public

Some years ago, at a denominational event that lasted for three days and two nights, I noticed that an entire series of worship services and devotions, one after another, were consistently and uniformly casual and sloppy. I don’t explicitly remember the content from these services and devotions, but it wasn’t terrible. At worst, it was innocuous, that is, it was simply the weakest of the weak hymns from LSB or it was bland statements extolling how much God loves us, while at it is best, it was quite good. That is to say I remember that we sang a couple of Lutheran Chorales and there was some decent exegesis and application at times. I didn’t go there with high expectations in this regard and I wasn’t there to judge the worship and devotions. I expect these things to be uneven for all sorts of reasons. What caught my attention was that these 9 or 10 different pastors, all of whom would describe themselves as “missional,” all acted and behaved in identical ways and used the same ceremonies, all of which were strange to me.

To begin with the liturgists and preachers went to some pains to make it clear that they weren’t familiar or comfortable with either the worship space or the order of service. It felt as though they didn’t know that they were going to be leading worship before they arrived and were given the bulletin while they vested. At first, I thought they were trying to make up for this irreverent oversight or rush by the way that they grinned through the service, sometimes shrugging their shoulders in an exaggerated way or ad libbing to us about their amusement at their confusion and giving half apologies. Several times, in response to this, the congregation roared in laughter.

All of them apparently felt that we must be confused in the pews as well and therefore gave a lot of verbal instructions and hand gestures about things like standing up for the Gospel or saying the creed and sitting down again from the hymn of the day.

In fact, I doubt that none of them were aware they would be leading worship at this event or were not given any chance to look over the order of worship or the space. I think that most of them behaved the way they did on purpose. They may not have made a conscious and deliberate choice to so, and some of what they did might simply have been to fit in with others, but I suspect their actions were born of the fact that for most of them their deepest understanding of the Gospel is the idea that Christ died to make us comfortable in His presence and that His love drives off even filial fear. But I suspect that they also desire to appear somewhat ill-prepared on purpose so that they do not give the false impression that they think too much of themselves, lack a sense of humor, or that they are not acting in sincerity.

In a similar way, at this same event, I was struck by the consistency of ceremony for the prayers. The devotions and worship both featured ex corde prayers. There were no Collects or pre-written prayers. I couldn’t see the faces of the men who led worship while they prayed, but the devotional prayers were in a conference room and the leader faced us while he prayed at a podium. Each of those men prayed with head bowed and their eyes squeezed painfully and tightly shut. Several of them gripped either side of the podium so fiercely that the veins on their hands stood out and their skin turned red. None of them folded their hands. Several had at least one hand in a pocket. All of them, to a man, in worship and the devotions, stuttered a great deal in these prayers in a very obviously contrived and stylized way.

I do not think this style of prayer was meant to suggest that those who were praying were doing so in fear of God. Rather, I think they were trying to show that they were praying spontaneously and hadn’t thought before about what they would say. They didn’t want us to think that they needed to prepare prayers or worship in a detailed way. They didn’t need to do that because they were completely comfortable and confident in the Gospel. That comfort drove spontaneity. But the spontaneity also meant sincerity. They were speaking from their hearts. They weren’t afraid of God, but they were being overcome by some angst and passion for the lost or for various injustices in the world or maybe by the Holy Spirit and they were struggling mightily with how they might put this to words in a way that God could understand them and realize how serious they were.

Don’t be like them. They meant well but failed. Be reverent. Be prepared. Don’t engage in theatrics. Pray the Collects and the prayers published in the hymnal. Trust God to hear your prayers based on His command and promise and teach your people by example to be calm, respectful, and serious in prayer.