The “low Protestant” end of churches offer a lot of freedom in the conduct of worship but frustratingly little published advice for ministers, at least apart from conducting weddings and funerals. So I was happy to find something to share.
Combing though some services books for the Sunday service, I found a taxonomy of prayers in the 1953 Christian Worship: A Service Book, edited by G. Edwin Osborn. It’s a companion to Christian Worship: A Hymnal which was still in use a quarter century ago when I was a seminarian at Brite Divinity School, a Disciples of Christ seminary. I’ve not been able to find much about Osborn but he seems to have been a professor of practical theology at Phillips University, another Disciples school. (The university is defunct, but the seminary remains.) It was published by the Disciples denomination press, so that squares up its lineage, but like many books of this kind of its era, it borrows widely, even from Unitarian sources.
Thus is his passage on Pastoral Prayers, page 243. I regret the reference that point within the book, but two of the Osborn received two of the cited prayer from W. E. Orchard’s The Temple. Since that’s in the public domain and online, I have linked to them. God bless those who create good indices.
Pastoral Prayers
There are certain accepted Patterns for a Pastoral Prayer which it is helpful to observe.
[Osborn cites some samples; this is one.]
(1) The Pastoral Prayer is composed of several elements which are essential to a complete expression of the experience of worship. They are easily remembered by their initial letters which spell “ACTSS,”
All five elements should find expression in a service of worship, but they may be distributed among the several prayers in the service rather than being included in only one. Thus, the Invocation may be of Contrition and Thanksgiving, the Pastoral Prayer of Adoration and Supplication, the Offertory and Closing Prayers of Submission.
They are:
Adoration, or Praise
Contrition, Confession, or Penitence
Thanksgiving, or Gratitude
Supplication, including:
- Petitions, which are prayers for ourselves, or the group including the worshipers.
- Intercessions, which are prayers for others outside the group of worshipers.
It is fairly simple to change a prayer from the expression of one element to another, as from petition to thanksgiving, or from contrition to submission, by changing the main verb from a verb of asking to one of gratitude, or from one of humility to one of dedication. Prayer No. 373 is an example of a prayer of petition; it can be changed to one of thanksgiving by changing “give” in the first line to “We thank thee for giving.” No. 391 can be changed from a prayer of contrition to submission by changing the words in the second line “draw us closer” to “we draw close,” by changing the third line words “may our hearts be open” to ‘We open our hearts,” and by inserting in the fifth line “So would we have thee” before the word ‘‘Enlarge.”
(2) Another Pastoral Prayer Pattern is the Theme Prayer. It is of two kinds; (a) where a theme is developed using it as the motif for the several elements (as No. 680 where the theme of “Springtime” is expressed in Adoration, Contrition, Supplication, and Submission), and (b) where a theme is developed emphasizing only one element, as in prayer No. 739 which develops the element of Penitence (or Contrition) on the theme of “God, Our Deliverer.”
(3) Pastoral concern for the people should characterize every pastoral prayer. Sometimes, as in selection No. 738, it dominates the entire prayer.t
(4) Communion with God is another prayer pattern. It is especially effective for an evening prayer. See selections 436 and 440 as examples.
I’ve been thinking about this one. But perhaps in a different way than you.
I think lengthy rambling prayers can kill the sense of corporate worship. I think a pastoral prayer should be concise. It is a charity to those who are in a sense joining along in the prayer. And too many preachers love too much to hear their own voice.
A good sense of “poetry” is also helpful. Is there some beauty or emotionally compelling quality to the flow of the words? Avoid awkward phrasing, deadpan delivery, and very bland word choices that obstruct the view of the devotional intent.