How to Pray While Someone Else Leads

How to Pray While Someone Else Leads As a teenager I lived for several months in the Scottish Highlands and worshiped with a Free Church of Scotland congregation. I remember my surprise that first Lord’s Day when, as the pastor began to pray, the entire church rose to its feet, standing together for the length of the prayer. As I joined them, I was conscious of being part of a group in action. We were not asleep. We were not listening passively to someone else pray. No. We were at worship, at work, and at war. We were the church, and we were praying together. Praying while someone else leads doesn’t always come easily. As children, we are prone to squirm and daydream. As teenagers, we may nod off to sleep. Even as adults, we sometimes find ourselves more preoccupied with thoughts of football or lunch than with the glorious purpose of our heavenly errand. But as I learned from those Highlanders on their feet, the key to praying while someone else leads is recognizing that we must actually pray, and that we pray, in the quaint words of one writer, “every whit as heartily as [the] leader.” Corporate prayer is work for the whole church. First, as obvious as it may sound, we must be present. We need to be present physically, “not neglecting to meet together” (Heb. 10:25). If we are not at the meetings of the church, we miss the opportunity to pray together. Also, we must be present mentally, paying attention to the petitions of the one who leads. Most importantly, we must be present spiritually, entering wholeheartedly into the common prayer. Second, having shown up, we make it our aim to say, “Amen.” More than just a token ending to a prayer, “Amen” is our emphatic agreement and earnest hope that the God who hears prayer will grant our united request. In this spirit, the psalmist urges, “Let all the people say, ‘Amen!’” (Ps. 106:48), and the apostle Paul directs Christians to pray clearly so that others can say, “Amen” (1 Cor. 14:16). Jesus, too, elevates agreement as our chief goal when we pray with others (Matt. 18:19). Keeping this focus promotes an attitude of humility and submission. We are not there to criticize (or to praise) the quality of the prayer; we are there to seek whatever is biblical in it and to add our assent. Even the most imperfect, stumbling prayers often contain truth about God and His purposes that we can “Amen.” We also seek whatever application we can make to our particular circumstances. Is the leader confessing the sin of idolatry? We examine our own hearts and repent of the instances we find. Is the leader praying for wisdom? We offer up to God the situations in which we find ourselves lacking discernment. In this way, the words of one person become the prayer of everyone. And all God’s people said, “Amen.” Of course, we cannot do any of this in our own strength. Calling on the promised help of the Spirit (Rom. 8:26), we should pray before praying, pray about praying, and pray while praying. Like the familiar illustration of the duck—that glides serenely on the water’s surface but is paddling frantically underneath—the members of the church may appear passive when praying together, but in the invisible places we are each working very hard indeed.

Excerpted from Praying Together by Megan Hill. © 2016. Crossway Books. Used by permission.