That's a very interesting question.  I sometimes find it hard for me, as one who has a vested interest in how the worship services are appreciated (being Worship chair), to really see how the entire congregation feels about some things.  I personally find it very hard to pray, but I don't mind when it's written out and waiting to be chanted in unison.  But occasionally, I'll get a comment about what kind of music someone would prefer less of, and then another one about how they'd like more of it. 

What saves me is that my committee did a survey a couple years ago, asking questions about what they liked best/least, would like to see more/less of.  And it turns out, what some people liked best, others liked least.  What some wanted more of, others wanted less of.  Most people were happy with the way things are.  Whenever someone hands me a complaint or an urging suggestion, I try to explain to them that as a community, we're trying to balance both sides.  I will absolutely pass their opinion along, but I try to tell them that there are others in the congregation who have the complete opposite opinion, and there's no way to please anybody.

You know preyer in that Dark Closet is like a thinking persona ... the Romans taught us the thinking devil was dangerous and gave rise to fear for the mind. We easily gave it up to blind guidance to another authority.

Now a blind trust is a thing that politicians have to use for their piling up of fortunes ... look what that has done for the banking system in general. Some of us would prefer to keep our minds and employ it to the use of the surrounding space ... cultivating and exercising it. It seems to assist the vision of what is going on around us in the shadowy portions! Out of the Bauchs with the devil!

Hello all ....God bless you....

Can there ever be such thing as too much prayer...prayer is what builds our relationship with God and keeps things personal ....but I do believe that churches should have teams who are well dressed in prayer to pray for the pastor, church, congregations etc...prayer should be a part of the service but not too much of it ...in only a hour you can only get so much in ....the importance of prayer should be taught again by the team who knows how to pray in the proper way ...without fear and with reverence for Our Lord God....

But I do believe that most prayers is like waterbuoy said ...done in the secret closets where we meet God and not out in public places for attention etc...

IJL: bg

Hi Fran: Welcome back. I hope you had a good trip, or are you still "lost at sea?" 

How much prayer is too much?

Whatever someone thinks is too much is too much—for them.

I'll be conducting our service on Transfiguration Sunday. I'll e-mail you my bulletin, and you'll see how much and what kind of prayer I favour.

Your preacher in overalls,

Arminius

Hi Fran:

My system theory brain is working this morning. .....

And I wondered if the comment was a cover for something else. Whenever a congregation, or a congregant, has an issue - it's usually easier to blame the pastor than take responsibility for one's self

 This is not about prayer in worship. There is an underlying issue about a colleague's style of leadership that causes this critic to speak. This is blame the pastor in one of the most important parts of our leadeship -- presiding at the Sunday service.

But I do agree that what one person considers too much, or too little prayer in worship, says so much about the critic than the issue of prayer in corporate worship.

I wonder what else is going on in the critic's heart than the matter of prayer in worship??

My wife uses what I use in liturgy and we both do the pastoral prayer in bidding - with a lot of silence ( for those who don't know the form - it is let us pray for those who sit beside us - silence - those who are sick in heart, mind, and body - silence and on and on)  In my experience most love the silence and you can feel the people pray.   Now I keep my eyes open in prayer so I can see some find it difficult and to make a generalization it is those who are cultural christians ( more older ones) who find it hard and the younger ones are deep in meditation.

Now my wife experienced the negative response of why should we pray for the world - and how about our community when she prays - let us pray for our community and silence... in other words they did not want to do the spiritual work and the tension behind the response was church has changed - it is now more demanding - we have to be more than a village church with a chaplain... So I think the push to spirituality and the connection with daily life has not been the norm in the UCC - it has been even urban centers friendship networks and community well being - the lions at prayer.

Hi Fran,

Prayer is an individual thing - we all have our preferences.

At our church we read a lot of our prayers together off the liturgy sheet. We also have an allocated time for personal prayers -  that any member of the congregation can say aloud if they so choose.

Personally, I regret the move away from the traditional prayer, as I prefer to close my eyes and reflect on the prayer itself. That said, I can see that that places all the onus on the minister. Maybe it's just me, but reading out a prayer aloud with others, reminds me of chanting out times tables at school. Not very inspiring!!

I think I would be content at our church if one change occurred. I would like to see the minister close a sermon with a prayer (eyes closed!) that connects the sermon with our life lived outside the church walls.

But, like I said at the beginning, prayer is an individual thing.

In our personal lives, I sometimes wonder if there IS too much prayer.  When friends are bereaved, we mention them in our prayers, and open our eyes, satisfied that we have done our 'Christian duty'.  Then, we sanctimoiously go on with our day, without bothering to actually spend 'real time' with our sorrowing friends (after all, we DID pray, so the Almighty will comfort our friends).  In this case, there can be too much prayer, and too little action.

Within a church service, balancing prayer with worship can be a bit dicey.  For myself, I love the liturgical prayers; I'd be one of the contemplative, 'younger' members who enjoys the deep silence of meditative prayer mentioned by Pantheism.  Personally, I find the call and response approach used in the Prayers of the People to be very helpful in keeping me focused. 

My parents are part of an Evangelical church (incidently, the people are very lovely and kind); I attended with them for a Sunday service between Christmas & New Year's.  All the prayer is 'ad hoc', and I found the prayers for congregational concerns to be long and rambling.  Ironically, my Dad (a retired Evangelical minister) absolutely LOVES the Prayers of the People at my churches; he thinks it's great that the congregation gets to particpate and focus.

Here's a few ideas I have that may help your colleague find a way to address the parishioner's concern about prayer.

• Let the people sit down during the Prayers of the People (and Eucharistic Prayers, if applicable).  In my congregations, people find that standing for ALL the prayers is a bit tiresome.  (To my chagrin, there are no kneelers in either of my churches.).  I find that standing during prayers makes it really hard to pray due to my feet going numb, the ever present kink in my back, etc .... standing in one spot is not a physiological comfortable position over a sustained period of time.  This is worsened if the prayers occur right after singing a rousing 5-stanza hymn (sung gustily whilst standing)!
• In my congregations, there is a short Prayer of the Day that is spoken by the entire congregation.  The content of the prayer changes from week to week; in my Anglican church, it is the Collect of the Day, which is often adapted to ensure inclusive language.
• Perhaps, the congregation might enjoy singing some of the prayers as opposed to reading them.  One of my congregations sings the Kyrie and Confession.  The Gloria and Trisagion are also sung by this congregation.  (The congregation isn't particularly talented in musical skills, but they're definitely music enthusiasts who sing with gusto  -- some of the elderly congregants tap their toes to the sung liturgy!)  Instead of a post-offering prayer, the other congregation sings a little song to the tune of 0ld 100th.

I hope this is helpful.  By the way, Arminius, I would love to see your plans for Transfiguration Sunday.

the opening prayer and prayer at confession at the church I attend are verses from hymns.  I like that our church does this and that there is a nice mix of the minister praying and group praying.

Hi DIVA:

I'll copy my Transfiguration Sunday service bulletin to you if you give me your e-mail address by wondermail.

My Transfiguration sermon and Transfiguration children's story I will post here on blog.

Yes, in my opinion, there can be too much prayer in the same way that there can be too many hymns, too long sermons etc.

As the minister sometimes I get called upon to pray so much I wonder if God is getting a little tired of hearing from me.  It would be nice if others in the congregation could lead in prayer sometimes if even to say a simple grace.

As Panentheism said prayers can be too detailed and talky - One colleaque prayed for those affected by the plane crash in Buffalo last week.  His prayer went something like "...we pray for those who lost loved ones in the crashing of the plane flying from Newark New Jersey to Buffalo New York..."  I got the feeling that God was screaming "I KNOW" as I listened.

If I were your colleague I would want to have a conversation with these people to get a better understanding of what their concern is - particularly that bit about being unprepared.

Meredith this is what turned me off pastoral prayers - another way of giving a sermon and doing all the work for me -  I feel like you - God says I know - now I do believe in intercessory prayer for a couple of reasons - being a relational theologian I know that there is a web of relationships and it values up our concerns when it is done in community - but I wonder about specific naming - that is why I let the people pray for what is on their mind in the guidance of let us pray for the sick of heart, mind and body.    The other aspect is God does add our insight to God's aim and values it up and sends it back - there is a feedback that focus the aim to a specific person, so when I pray in silence I focus on what is before me.

Now there cannot be to much praying - if we take the prayer fact - life is a prayer - we walk our prayers, we join with others in the common good in prayer.   So prayer is our living and the focus of prayer is help us focus, as individuals and as a community.

The thing that bothered me in my wife's experience - you have too much silence  - is that it signifies that those who had problems really had problems with being the church - it was a feel good time, not a time of preparing us for action in the world, for the living of this day and the next and on and on.  It was a way of resisting her ministry - the objection that is and I think in the case Fran outlined at the beginning.

My concern was mostly with the notion of a member of a congregation who would comment "too much prayer", and accuse the minister of using it as a cover for being "unprepared" for worship. My response was I would have put the person on the spot then and there, and asked "What do you mean?". But something else going on there. Whenever I hear "people don't like what you're doing", I know it is likely that one individual who doesn't like it, not "people".

But it got me to thinking about the role of prayer in our worship, and the fact that prayer is part of who we are and what we are doing. Church *isn't* a feel good time, or it shouldn't be, but is to be a place of spiritual preparation, as Panentheism has pointed out.

And what is prayer? Brian Wren says hymns are "praying twice"; for me, music is prayer, silence is prayer, reading the scriptures is prayer.

And, there is for me something ludicrous about a church person suggesting there is "too much prayer" in a service - unless, of course, it is a four-hour prayer in a one-hour service. :) But that wasn't the case with my colleague....

Fran

We shape our community so we can listen for, and respond to, divine callings.  Ideally, all corporate prayer in acts of worship will involve this kind of shared listening. One purpose of worship, then, is not simply to praise the Lord but to listen to the Lord, who so often speaks in the quieter recesses of the human heart, with sighs too deep for words. This communal shaping helps prepare a person for ordinary life, in which the habit of discernment is needed.
We create a sympathetic response to God. Typically this occurs through imagination and intuition. We place ourselves in the situation of others and feel their feelings; and we simultaneously listen for ideal possibilities for response. Community is shaped by corporate worship to create a  kind of spiritual osmosis where people share in one another’s listening. Their prayers become our prayers; their courage our courage.

Heyo franota/everyone. Wowza bigowza. What a question.

From my eyes, there can never be too much prayer. Prayer is, for me, the only direct way i can speak to God about concerns, issues, or other things in my life. Thanks and excitement and confusion and all that fun stuff you go through as a teenager. Prayer is a way to talk to my Father. Like in any relationship, you need to communicate to advance in knowing each other. God talks to us in various ways (through others, the bible, directly) the least we can do is reply.

But also, in a larger context, prayer can be a request. In a church, when people are praying and expressing whats on their hearts, others hear it, others agree. Its almost like collectively asking the person in charge for one thing. I went to work at a christian camp one summer. Before the day started and before evening chapel, the staff would all intercede for the campers. Everyone would be asking for a general thing, but praying for individual aspects. "Help the campers to open their hearts and hear a word from You." "Give the campers strength for today and courage to go through it." So on and so forth. It is a hard thing to see past yourself and pray for others, but when I get into where God's at, I could stay there forever. Henceforth not having too much prayer haha

Someone said earlier prayer is a secretive thing. In the bible I remeber priests and other people would run in the streets and rip out the hair and bawl their eyes out in a show of prayer for god.. hmmm.. sounds sketchy. They could be doing this for God, if He so politely asked them to. I mean, you should pray for whats on your heart, but doing it simply to show others 'look at me im talking to GOD' it becomes lame and lifeless. Prayer is something not to be taken lightly. You can pray to God as much as you like, but your heart has to be in the right place to not have expectations and be open to recieving answers.

I guess, all in all, theres no such thing as too much prayer as long as your reasons behind talking to the Father are honest, genuine and what you feel.