Ideas for Preparing to Lead Prayer in Public
1. As you read Scripture in preparation for leading prayer, be attentive to the movements (feelings, thoughts, impulses) inside you.2. Read a brief commentary on the passage, such as the Collegeville Bible Commentary or Sacra Pagina NT Commentary. Excellent material about passages from Sunday readings appear in Give Us This Day, Word Among Us, or Magnificat.
3. Identify whatever portion of the Bible passage you're reading most interests you, engages your feelings, or resonates with your experience.
4. Take 15-20 minutes to pray with that scripture portion. (Better yet, pray 5 to 20 minutes every day for several days on this scripture portion.)
5. Listen for the movements of God’s Spirit within you as you pray. Is there something particular that is drawing you toward God in the passage? Can you sense a Word or image that means something special to you?
6. What do you want to say to God in response to that sense of being drawn, that Word, that image? Are you thankful? Joyful? Puzzled? Remain with your response in a prayerful way.
7. How would you like to express that prayerful response as prayer with your class?
- Is there a familiar prayer that offers a similar prayerful response to yours? Make your prayer a combination of the Scripture text and the prayer that comes to mind.
- Is there a song or poem that comes to mind that you’d like to offer in prayer?
- Is there a brief story you might tell in a prayerful way?
- Might you compose a prayer yourself--in your own voice, or in art, poetry, music, any appropriate medium for public prayer?
