My experience as a kid in the church was almost identical to Richard Liantonio’s. Anything that smacked of Catholicism, like written prayers, was about “religion, not relationship,” and left “no room for the Holy Spirit.”
Wait a second. No room for the Holy Spirit? Interesting.
For some reason, the same Holy Spirit whom my pastors assured me could do amazing works of restoration in even the most hopeless of souls…couldn’t quite lick the Kryptonite of written prayers.
Why is it that written prayers and liturgy are considered to prevent the Holy Spirit from getting any work done? Everyone seems to treat the Spirit like weird Uncle Frank. You remember Uncle Frank. He was the uncle who smelled funny and always showed up way late to Christmas. He was pretty much guaranteed to screw up the holiday schedule Grandma had been planning since Presidents’ Day, but none of the kids really cared because he always brought really extravagant gifts (thanks again for the iguana, Frank).
For those of you who didn’t have a weird Uncle Frank, I’ll explain. It seems that we have reduced the Holy Spirit to the disheveled but interesting part of the Trinity who is always running a little late. Why is it that we can’t imagine the Holy Spirit being present when the committee met to decide on the order of worship? Or when the pastor had set time aside for sermon preparation? Or yes, Mr. Liantonio…back when these ancient prayers were being written.
There have certainly been times in my life when I needed to speak with God like a buddy sitting next to me. But there are other times when the most faithful thing I can do is sit back and pray the prayers of the saints who have come before me. Sometimes it’s simply to expand my prayer horizons. But other times it is the words of written prayer that carry us when we don’t much feel like carrying ourselves. I guess what I’m admitting is that sometimes we pray because we want, and other times we pray because we ought. In the case of the latter, Liantonio reminds us, our predecessors have left us something to lean on.
Now, with all that being said, it might also be important to issue a few warnings. I think there’s an idea we need to distance ourselves from in the church. This idea has frozen some churches in time and led others to spend the bulk of their budgets on cool media equipment. It has caused church splits, denominational divides (insert redundancy joke here) and even a few civil wars. And no, it’s not predestination.
It’s the word best.
For a few millennia now, faithful followers around the world have searched for the best types of music, the best theology, the best sermons and, of course, the best prayers. I’ll admit, this is typically an honorable endeavor taken by well-intended souls. When it comes to all things God, it’s not difficult to see why people would be interested in finding the very best way of doing things. After a decade of working with youth and young adults, I believe that the quest for best is killing us.
I think my prayer life worldview would have been pretty different if I had simply been told, “Written prayers aren’t really our style at this church; we kinda like to ad-lib.” Then maybe I wouldn’t have grown up thinking written prayers were composed by a bunch of sinners.
That’s where the notion of best gets a little tricky. It insinuates that if there’s a best way, then all the other ways are inferior. And while inferior is okay when referring to laundry detergent, it’s pretty much just another way of saying wrong when dealing with how we relate to the Creator of the universe. It’s a dangerous cycle, and it doesn’t take long to pick up speed. I’ve watched it play out with my students more than once.
They pray a particular way (it doesn’t matter which) because that’s how they always have. They discover a new way to pray and notice the benefits of this new method. They assume a certain status of enlightenment over people representing the old way. Dissension ensues.
It’s a pretty predictable pattern, one that I’d bet most can relate to. Feel free to take out the term prayer and replace with worship music, seeker friendly, discipleship, missional, emergent—you get the point. What if all of these words weren’t attempts to be the best but were rather seen as tools and voices in the grand, ongoing conversation about faithfulness?
This is where corporate and written prayers have so much to offer. Youth and young adults are growing up in the age of the individual, and subsequently, we’ve managed to raise some pretty impressive individuals. However, we’re a little behind on raising team players. Liantonio’s comments on prayer narcissism were right on. Spiritual practices like written prayers could be just what the doctor ordered for a generation that needs to experience what it means to be one of many involved in something bigger than itself.
While we should be careful not to think we’ve rediscovered the next best thing, written prayers could offer our generation of attention addicts the opportunity to step out of the prayer limelight and notice God all over again.
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