I recently returned from keynoting a week-long youth event at which I was also responsible for helping youth plan the evening worship experiences. One teen wanted to focus a service around prayer and shared with us a unique approach to group prayer. We started by giving each participant an index card on which we had written the name of a prayer concern or issue such as homelessness, the oil spill, the elderly, pregnant teens, and so on. Each person was invited to go sit by themselves somewhere in the worship space and pray silently for several minutes for whatever was on their card. Next, we invited each person to join with someone sitting near them, share their pray cards, and pray for those concerns together. Next, each group of two joined with a group of four. We continued the process until the entire group was sitting together in a circle and we closed with a prayer together. It was a moving experience, both to pray with just one other person and also to share the different ways each of us articulated prayers for the various concerns. Another interesting approach to this way of praying might be to pass out blank cards and let each person begin by writing their own prayer concern on the card.
–Brian
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