Advent moves on a pace, with plenty of extra festive events popping up here and there. I can’t pretend it’s not a bit of an overwhelming time, when there is a little bit of an extra pressure ‘from somewhere’ to preform that bit better – maybe something to do with wanting to help make people’s experience of Christmas ‘good’. Even if I’m the only person applying that pressure, it’s there in the background. It’s the only time of the year I get particularly nervous about the events being held. They can, after all, be really special opportunities, particularly when it comes to having visitors in the crowd. Trying to present a decent summary of the gospel through the Christmas message in a way that lands somewhere is the task…but doing it several times over and often in the same place for a number of years!
Anyway, in the midst of all that, you have to keep it real and grounded. One of the things that has been a steady rock for me spiritually during this season has been the decision I made to walk through Advent using Morning and Evening Prayer from the Church of England’s ‘Daily Prayer’ book. It is a resource which basically helps you to pray the Scriptures, utilising a variety of themed psalms and readings, seasonal prayers and some of the other key prayers (like the Lord’s Prayer, the Nunc Dimitis, the Magnificat etc.)
If I’ve said this once, I’ve said this a thousand times: even although I once thought of liturgical prayer as a bit of a lame substitute for ‘real prayer’, I no longer see it that way. Using these scriptures and prayers as a framework for prayer helps me do a number of things: a) turn up, b) stay prayerfully connected to praying in alignment with God’s Word c) create a framework to give shape to my prayers beyond the ‘shopping list’ and, d) to deepen my experience of God in a way where he has more chance to speak to me than I might normally give.
The irony is that most people who don’t think they pray ‘set prayers’ are gently misled! If you told me the name of several people in my congregations over the years, I could almost repeat a prayer ‘in their style’. The truth is, we make up our own language of prayer. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but it just proves the point I’m making. Language is important. One of the reasons that communities of Christians have prayed and sung the Psalms over the years, is that the Psalms give the people of God a language of prayer, praise, petition, lament and so much more. When the disciples went to Jesus and said ‘teach us how to pray,’ Jesus didn’t just give them a prayer to recite (although the Lord’s Prayer can be recited, of course), but in that prayer he gave them a pattern for prayer as well as a lifestyle to live. My experience in 25 years of pastoral ministry is that one of the most common questions people ask their pastor is the same as that question that the disciples ask Jesus: how can we develop our life of prayer?
We can very quickly throw off a call to a regular commitment to a pattern and time of dedicated prayer under the charge of ‘legalism’… especially if we want to be let of the hook because we’re not really turning up before God to pray! I really believe that it is one of the greatest privileges of Christian life, but also one of the biggest struggles because all of Hell is out to stop you coming to the Lord in prayer – praying Christians are the ones who will press on and see the great commission completed, and for the enemy, that signals his ultimate demise. It’s a war out there!
I’m not saying that using a liturgy can’t become cold and rote…I’m sure we’ve maybe all seen or heard that. But equally, I’ve hear as many cold and rote extempore prayers. The issue is rarely the form, but always the heart! May God use whatever he needs to use to draw us to himself. I am personally grateful for all the ways I’ve encountered his presence and truth in all sorts of ways of praying. Perhaps 2026 is a year for you to shake it up too? You never know.
Andrew S M Clark 