Time to ditch ‘We pray for . . .’

I really read this article because I am having a bit of a bugbear at the moment about the use of the word 'pray' and 'prayer' in worship and, in fact, prayer meetings. I'm starting to find the ubiquity of it feels like overuse: I no longer know what I'm supposed to be doing when some says 'we pray for ....'  And this seems to be part of the concern of Geoffrey Wilkinson who wrote the referenced article in the Church Times. Towards the end of the article, the author suggests,

“We pray for” is not prayer. At best, it is an invitation to the gathered assembly to pray for a particular concern" 

And I think that this may touch on part of my frustration with the phrase. It does depend, though, on what else is said. I agree that if a bare 'We pray for xyz' is used with no other qualification or elucidation, then the best we can do is bring a brief frisson of concern before God. Perhaps more than brief if the prayer leader gives pause and has signalled it. But often we will hear 'We pray for xyz and pqr and efg ...' without much gap to engage inwardly. I think this is what Mr Wilkinson is concerned about, at root.

However, I'm not sure how fully I agree with other points in the article.

By using the phrase “We pray for”, the Intercessor ceases to be a mediator between the people of God and God, and becomes instead a prayer leader. The proper meaning of “intercession” is thereby immediately lost.

I'm really not that worried about the distinction being made there, personally. And if I did, I think I might just come down on the other side of the issue. You see, I'm not really sure that the CofE means 'intercessions' in this part of the service: I think that the word was used because it has a certain gravitas but that what was really meant -and what is meant in practice- is 'petitions', 'requests', 'concerns', 'desires' and if we were honest to what a lot of people do, 'hopes' and 'wishes'. I'm not sure that 'intercession', as I understand it, is actually really suitable for regular public worship. The 'standing in the gap' stuff which involves the hard work of emotional engagement, empathy, patience, identification with others and so forth is really not something the average Sunday congregation is equipped to do corporately and most would probably find the intensity of it hard to be part of.

And, in fact, I'm not really sure I want to conceive of my role when I lead 'intercessions' at communion -or would want others taking that role- as mediating "between the people of God and God". I think I'm trying for "expressing requests and concerns" as a kind of spokesperson-in-congregation. I actually think that the kind of role described at that point feels uncomfortably close to usurping the role of Christ. I think that intercession is more like standing between God and the situation/people concerned -and we do that as a response to a vocation and as part of our ministry (lay or ordained) and, crucially, it's something we do in Christ -we take a share of the mission of God in the ministry of Christ. This is not what those Sunday morning prayers are largely attempting. Though I think that there is room for a conversation about how we situate our corporate petitions in the mission of God and our apprehension of it.

I'm also not fully with the assumption behind one of the remedies offered in the final paragraph:

THERE are two main ways of extracting ourselves from the “We pray for” mire in which we now find ourselves. The most obvious is to address God throughout the prayers, without faltering.

My main quibble with this is the assumption that it is not what is being done. I agree that the literal grammar of the phrasing suggests that we are, in a sense, describing what we are doing. However, I do actually think that most people who say this actually conceive of the phrase performatively, that is in saying 'we pray...' they are actually doing what they describe and bringing the matter to God, they do not conceive of themselves as merely inviting others to 'think their own thoughts prayerfully'. I guess that I am taking issue with that first quote I repeated: for a number of people it actually *is* prayer and the words are performative in intention. Now you might, as I do, wonder whether we can't do better, but I don't think quibbling about grammar is the right way to go to address that.

So, I guess the question then devolves to what I think could be done, going forward.

The article I'm reacting to is found here: Time to ditch ‘We pray for . . . It is possible that it may be behind subscription /limited sign up barrier.

I'm thinking that we actually need to encourage people to think more about what could be meant we the/we say 'we pray...'. One way to get a sense of that would be to ban using the phrases 'we pray...' or the word 'prayer' in our corporate petitions. This would make clear that what is often going on is a truncation of petitionary activity; we are coming to think that the word 'pray' is sufficient to say something. But what something?

So, take a phrase like "We pray for our government." Now, sometimes that may be followed up with some concerns which would be actual prayers in Wilkinson's terms: things like 'that they might have wisdom in their deliberations" for example. And if we followed up the ban on 'pray' we might just come up with an alternative like, "We ask for our government to have wisdom ..." or "We request you to send your Holy Spirit to work through the deliberations ..." The use of words like 'request' or 'ask' more strongly require a transitive construction than 'pray' now seems so. I suspect that once upon a time, when 'pray' was only just taking over from 'bede' or 'bid', it would have been nigh on impossible to say 'we pray for the queen.' Full stop. Without feeling it necessary to complete the sentence which was so obviously felt to be unfinished.

To refuse to use 'pray' might also encourage or even force us to consider what we are doing in terms of specifically asking for something or mainly giving expression to our concern. Those are not opposed matters; the latter can run into the former. Our concerns should be expressed before God: 'We are worried about ...'; "We fear for ...."; "We hold N in high regard"; "We hope ....". With those latter examples, we start to shade into naming our requests.

But there is one other component needed in leading public petitioning of God. That is the 'according to your will' or 'in the name of Jesus' dimension. This involves making requests that we truly believe are part of what God desires and is working for by the Spirit. This is no light or mean thing. In many, perhaps most cases, therefore, we will want to be restrained and perhaps a little imprecise. Perhaps we will want only to name our concern and encourage ourselves to hold it before God with a degree of unknowing about what the right thing to ask for us, seeking God's further wisdom and enlightenment. Perhaps sometimes that is what we need to say in public rather than being quite so bold before we understand better what we might be asking and best to ask.

Perhaps we should give up 'praying' for Lent! -Instead let's be 'asking', 'requesting', 'petitioning', even 'imploring' or just 'bringing our concern'. In taking up the challenge to 'say what we mean', we might just also discover that we say less and enquire more: that we learn more fully to 'wait on the Lord'.