Praying in the Episcopal Church

I think my eyes have really been opened to new ideas since I have been attending a local community worship service at an Episcopal Church. One thing Episcopalians do well is prayer. As Baptists, we like to make and write our own prayers. The only prayer we probably know by memory is the Lord’s Prayer. However, in the Baptist church we usually pray together, but in a passive way. In my church, we usually say the Lord’s Prayer together after the minister prays the invocation. The pastoral prayer is led by either me, or the youth pastor. The congregation listens and is supposed to pray with me, but it is a seemingly passive way of praying.

However, in the Episcopal Church, we’ve been praying in an active way. Different people help lead the prayer and the congregation has to respond. The congregation is required to take a more active role, whether or not they are paying attention to what is being said. I like this method because many different people are helping lead the prayer and that makes it seem more inclusive. I also like the idea of having prayers already written, especially because I worry that I pray the same thing over and over again. I try to keep my own personal agenda out of it and that is hard to do. If it were up to me I would pray for those who feel broken every week. That is just something that is always on my mind, but I also need to keep everything in balance. I sometimes think it would be nice if I didn’t have to write a prayer.

I really think the Episcopalians do prayer well, but I don’t want to say that Baptists should be just like them. I just think that Baptists ought to be more creative about how they pray. It would be cool to see my Baptist church pray a prayer that required them to respond. At least I would know that the congregation was awake. It would also be nice to say some prayers that were already written, to provide some variety from what I would pray. Writing a prayer is sometimes a needed thing, because there is something that the Spirit lays on me. However, it is also a struggle that I have to deal with. The beauty of being a moderate Baptist is the fact that we get to experiment with different things. Our church has been experimenting with doing communion by way of intinction and it has been a great thing. Letting the church try new things and decide what it likes to do is so healthy. That’s what the church is about; letting the Holy Spirit move.