Prayer: Extemporaneous or Written

Sixth Thursday of Easter

I've had occasion to deal with numerous ministers of other denominations. By far the two denominations whose ministers I have dealt most with have been Episcopal and Baptist. The two are far apart on the Protestant spectrum in almost every way.

One of those ways is minister's prayers. Episcopal ministers (they say priests, which I shall henceforward) are virtually incapable of saying extemporaneous prayers, that is, prayers that they think of and speak at the moment. They need to have written prayers, especially from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (BCP).  The BCP is extremely important to all Episcopalians. All their liturgies are there in full. Many other prayers for all sorts of occasions can be found there. It is a brilliant, wonderful, and historic book. Several are in every pew in every Episcopal Church. Many, perhaps most, own one. I remember once when I was preaching in an Episcopal Church, I said, "Let us pray," at the end of my sermon. Then I said an extemporaneous prayer. Episcopalians don't do that. The congregation seemed confused. They didn't know whether to stand, sit, or kneel (Episcopal Churches have kneeling benches in the pews). 

Baptist pastors are the opposite. They find it virtually impossible to read a written prayer. I've been to many a Baptist funeral. There is no funeral liturgy. They make it up as they go along. The one exception is weddings, during which Baptists will use a liturgy (they don't like the word liturgy. They would probably say service).

Methodists are joyfully in between. We make good use of both in our worship. 

But in our prayers at home, most of us United Methodists have extemporaneous prayers silently. The exception might be blessings at meals. Baptists normally have a designated pray-er say an extemporaneous blessing. Methodists may have a set prayer that the whole family says or may have a designated prayer. I've been to dinners at Episcopal Churches. The priest always reads a blessing (there is also an Episcopal book of blessings and prayers for other occasions). 

A principal reason why most United Methodists do not use written prayers at home is that most of us lack the resources. There is a United Methodist Book of Worship, but only ministers ever use it.

Many Methodists use the Daily Devotions in the Upper Room, which are written primarily by laypeople in local churches (I had several people in my church in North Wilkesboro who had written some). We also have United Methodist devotional resources, particularly for Advent and Lent, but they tend to be thin throwaway pamphlet size.

So I think we, perhaps I should say, you, readers of this blog, should have more home devotional and prayer resources. To that end, every Thursday (prayer and spirituality day on the blog), I will provide a prayer, not of my own writing, but a prayer of classic value by a Saint or a saint or an anonymous. I hope you will hit the PRINT button, print it off and keep it, maybe start a folder of them. 

This weeks' prayer is the Phos Hilaron ("O Gracious Light") and is used for evening prayer.

O gracious Light, pure brightness of our everlasting God in heaven,

O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed.

Now we come to the setting of the sun

     and our eyes behold the vesper light.

We sing your praises, O God: most holy and blessed Trinity.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,

O Son of God, O giver of Life, and to be glorified through all the worlds.

Faithfully,

Christian