Prayers

Under this tab can be found a growing collection of prayers drawn up for specific occasions in the course of ministry. The prayers do not include private prayers, nor the following: invocations said at the outset of services of public worship, congregational prayers, prayers which follow the ministry of the Word, or the end pieces of various liturgies (whether for baptisms, communions, reception of new members, etc.). They are rather prayers which have been offered on special occasions.

They are not intended as Pharisaical demonstrations, but as sincere expressions of praise, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication, appropriate to the occasion on which they were first given.

I do not claim a particular gift in prayer, but we are taught how to pray, both in Scripture by Christ and in experience by the Spirit. These prayers are shared, then, as part of a process of praying as I learn and of learning as I pray, and in the prayerful hope that the prayers will offer encouragement to call on God in these needy days.

May the Lord bless and use such prayers as he wills!

Inspirer and hearer of prayer, both leading and guarding your sheep, I place in your covenant care my life, both awake and asleep; if you are my shield and my sun the night is no darkness to me, for, fast as my moments roll on, so nearer to you I shall be.

Augustus Toplady, “A Sovereign Protector I Have”