It is difficult to reflect on the past application of both public prayer and Scripture reading and not strongly lean in favor of these two arch-types of response. Yet it is clear that many contemporary churches have not engaged public prayer or public scripture reading (extended portions of scripture, not referential passages) as a regular part of their services or practice. Much of the reason for contemporary protestant churches not employing public prayer and public reading of extensive portions of Scripture is due to the historical backlash of the reformation movement that abashed many forms of liturgy, including these two historical components.
On one hand, in Christian church history you see the systematizing of public Scripture reading and public prayer, allowing for a positive consistency to develop (from the 1st century to the 15th century, before the reformation). Unfortunately, this systematizing also meant an ongoing separation of those duties from the common worshiper to the eventual segregation into a strictly "clergy" based activity. On the other hand, powerful rejection of popular systematizing of the Christian practices (by the Reformation principals) led to divergent groups with even more bizarre practices. We also see from the monastics, who often cloistered themselves away from their culture, that if we divorce the Christian life and practice from our culture that we can fall into unrealistic excesses that do not reach the world for which Christ died and sent us. Yet, we see from some of the reformers that responding too harshly to historical practices (by abolishing them) can leave us cut off from some of the positive richness of our heritage.
How can we freshly apply public prayer today? I believe the essence of successful application involves us allowing for more time for these practices- both in the organized church meetings and in our personal private lives. In the gathered meetings, most contemporary churches follow a system that includes some format- music, announcements, preaching, alter ministry, etc. Even the most "free" churches end up systematizing their "freedom" into an anticipated outline of a service program. But, like most things in life, we do what we value (in some form or another). Many contemporary churches value music as essential to a worship service. Thus, you rarely find a contemporary church in which music is absent on even an occasional basis. Similarly, preaching/teach is held as an atomic feature of a regular church gathering. If we value public prayer, perhaps we can learn from those churches who use a Book of Common prayer or lectionaries in their service flow. Determining to incorporate regular times for communal public prayer, and then facilitating that activity is the only way it might reasonably be expected to become an integral part of a church's congregational life flow.
Similarly, public reading of larger portions of scripture should have a built-in essentiality to its presence in all corporate gatherings of the church. Of course, this is seen in many mainline denominations today, but is lacking in many "free" churches. This needs to change. As with public prayer, reading of Scripture must be given atomic status in regular large and small group gatherings in the local church if it is to have an enduring impact.
The benefit of regular public prayer is clear- to join in with a larger community to be more fully known in our common struggles and a common focus in which we can articulate our petitions. Public prayer is both to God, and enjoining with our neighbor. It re-establishes our need for and of Him, and our common struggle along with our brother/sister. In this shared experience, we become part of the story and prayer of the community, not just a solitary voice calling out to a omniscient God who handles people in isolated spheres.
Public reading of scripture has an even more powerful benefit- it turns all listeners to the over-arching story of God. If prayer tells God our story, then Scripture tells us God's. We would be remiss to speak sound bites to God, to not allow the entire community to exclaim its petition and desperate cry to God- for without the breadth of that, our prayer is myopic. Similarly, and in greater reality, studying small portions of the Scripture, or reading portions of it only alone, removes from the community the bigger story of God. We need to hear the whole story of God, and we need to hear it without interpretation, allowing for the long term (IE. months and years) impact of hearing regular portions of Scripture become the "washing with water" that was intended for our fickle human hearts. We benefit from this because we gain the grand perspective of the entire Bible, not just the powerful, but narrow view of any few verses, chapters or even books.
My belief is that the primary thing to do here is to actually engage a scheduled commitment to public prayer and scripture reading equal to our commitment of music and teaching /preaching. It need not be equal in time, nor should it be systematized too heavily (which we have seen historically leads to painful aberrations). But including public prayer and scripture reading as archetypal norms in our gatherings is the way to move forward with changing our future for the better, as we learn from our past.
Kim Gentes
Monday, October 19, 2009 at 3:18PM