On Monday I quoted James Jordan’s first two theses from his book Theses on Worship. This morning I wanted to bring together his two points that worship is prayer and worship does not come naturally to make some observations about prayer in public worship.

1. Prayer should dominate the public worship of God’s people.  There should be many prayers in a worship service. They need not be long, but they must be frequent.

2. During worship, God’s people should pray some prayers together. At our church we confess our sins with a corporate confession of sin that we all say. I would like to add more corporate prayers over the coming years. Anyone who doesn’t like this should stop singing songs like, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” or “Come Thou Almighty King,” which are both prayers.

3. Praying correctly and biblically is not something automatically inserted into a new believer’s brain.  Proper prayer is learned.  Prayer is primarily learned in corporate worship. Those men who wish to pray in the public worship service must be well versed in the prayers and psalms in the Bible. Their prayers must be built on the foundation of God’s Word. They would also be wise to have The Book of Common Prayer on hand, as well as Hughs Oliphant Old’s book Leading in Prayer.

4. Learning to pray requires work.