Can Written Prayers Help Us Cultivate a Deeper Faith?

In college I had a job doing telemarketing, selling yellow page space in phone books. I was tasked with renewals: businesses who had previously purchased yellow page ads could renew. I had to call them, remind them it was time to renew, and try to sell them a space that would suit their needs.

Phone calls have always made me nervous. I remember pacing while I talked with girls on the phone in junior high. Nothing had changed when I started this telemarketing job in college: I felt awkward and uncomfortable talking with people in another city about their business, assessing their needs, and offering them deals. Fortunately, I was given a basic script. "Say this. Walk the client through these steps." It felt artificial and faked. I didn't like it. "The more you do it, the better you'll get," they told me. So I did it.

Over time I got more comfortable talking with clients on the phone. The script gave me an idea of what to say, what not to say, how to understand the person on the other end of the line. Eventually I didn't need the script. I'd just call, and start talking with the client. I didn't feel completely at ease: phone calls have always made me nervous. But I was able to make a good connection.

When it comes to prayer, I think we sometimes need a script. Responsive prayers are a form of scripted prayers. They are pre-written, and they walk us through some motions of prayer. In the case of Sunday, a couple litanies by Fran Pratt were adapted to help us pray through themes of generosity, offering, and spiritual formation. Prayers like these help us develop a richer faith in a few ways. First, they expand our vocabulary of prayer. If you tend not to pray because you feel have walked the same worn path over and over again, a scripted prayer might reveal some new ground to explore. Second, they ease our anxiety. How comforting when we are all praying together: no one is singled out, no one feels in the spotlight; we all pray together. Third, responsive prayers remind us that we have a part in prayer: prayer is not the action of a pastor, but the action of a church.

If prayer is an area that feels foreign or awkward to you, I'd encourage you to seek some scripted prayers. If you'd like help finding them, I could point you toward some resources. Over time, you might feel you need them less and less. The more confident you feel in prayer, the more likely you are to pray more often, the more you can hear from God, the more you can respond in worship, the more like Christ you will become, the more glory to God.