Praying that Makes a Difference

Whether from the pulpit, or Ground Zero, pastoral prayer changes things

Soon I became a pastor, and on the first Sunday of my tenure I was faced with an item in the worship order that said "pastoral prayer." When the time came, I got up and prayed, all the time remembering the girl who had wondered why I couldn't pray like the other guys.

Because experience counts for something, I managed to spiff up my pastoral prayers in the next few years. Words, phrases, and subject matter came with increasing ease. I prayed for the sick, the dying, and the high-schoolers off on their weekend retreat. But most of the time I had little or no sense that this pastoral prayer was anything more than a pit stop in the order of worship. It was a moment when the choir could vacate the choir loft and the ushers could prepare to take the offering. It was just there each Sunday morning, and it was mine to pray.

Then one day, during a visit to England, I found myself wandering the stacks of a theological library. Impulsively, I picked a 19th-century autobiography from a shelf. The book described the life of an obscure vicar. But what grabbed me was a newspaper clipping someone had pasted into the book. It was the vicar's obituary.

I read, "The vicar was a man of prayer. He loved to pray for his congregation. People came from all around to hear him pray for them. And as they listened, they were comforted and learned to pray by his example."

I was jolted. "People came from all around to hear him (not preach!) pray." Who, I asked myself, would ever come to our church to hear me pray? Was it possible that I had been squandering a great pastoral privilege?  Read more