Baptists have few immovable objects in their loose liturgy.  The Pastoral Prayer is not one of them.  Leave that out and you will need to have some nifty WWWF skills to make it out alive after the service.  It is possibly the most likely point in the service [after notices] that will send people to sleep.  All too often the pastoral prayer resembles a list of aches and pains that include family or friends of friends of family of someone in the church who has got a friend who knows this particular family that this person is in….. [lost yet?].

Another key feature of Pastoral Prayers is that many requests for ‘mentions’ are made seconds before the start of the service, or handed to you on a scrap of paper seconds before you head up on stage to deliver the ‘pastoral prayer’.  These notes are usually cryptic, barely legible, and missing crucial bits of information so that you can’t put together a coherent narrative.

The importance of being ‘mentioned’, or having the person you want being ‘mentioned’ has taken on divine symmetry.  Failure to ‘mention’ someone is regarded as an act which places the prospect of any answer from ‘normal’ prayer in peril, and as a pastor you lose ‘re-appointment votes’ on the spot.  You may as well fill in the application to join Amway or plan for some other kind of career if you put together a sequence of ‘pastoral prayer ommissions’.

I’ve tried to do something about this, and I am having some success: (more…)