What do I pray when I lead worship? Part 3

So… let’s get real practical. In this blog, I want to help you by giving you practical ways of praying when leading. Of course, I won’t give you the exact words to pray, but ways that will help you grow and learn in the “art” of public praying.

Before we start, I’m assuming that as a leader of worship, you have an active, intimate prayer life as mentioned in the first of these blogs. If you don’t have a prayer life, you shouldn’t be leading worship to begin with, so start with a daily, constant prayer conversation with God. Having said that, what do we pray?

If you open with a prayer, why not try praying a Psalm? Reword the opening lines to Psalms like Psalm 66, 95, 96, 100. There’s lots of them! Simply put them in your own words, use the collective “We…” and pray prayers of praise and adoration. Psalm 66:1-3 may look something like this: “We want to declare your power and your amazing deeds.. We want to sing and shout to the glory of Your name, so that all may come to bow down before You today…”
Use the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer to shape your prayers. A great example of this is John Pipers video called “Teach us to Pray”. It’s a great example of how to take the Lord’s Prayer line by line, and use it as a springboard for your own. You could play this video (I have!) as a way of helping people connect in prayer to our Father… or simply learn how to pray from this example.
You may wish to take a prominent line of a song, or a theme of a song, and use that to pray. I have done this many times… for example you may have just sung “Let us Adore” and follow up by praying Matthew 11:28-29 inviting the broken, the hurting and those needing forgiveness and redemption to come to the Father and pray for them, or have your prayer team go to them… whatever works for your church, and however the Spirit guides.
You may also wish to pray a prophetic type prayer of blessing or encouragement over the people. One needs to be careful that this is Spirit led and not come out of your own spirit. The other week I was leading worship with a group of teachers in a school. We had just finished singing “Good Good Father” and I felt led to encourage people to know just how good God is, and that He loves them deeply. I spoke some words of truth over them, and gave them space to engage with God, and allow the Holy Spirit to work (I may have picked a bit of guitar in the background). The thing here was, that I planned this, because as I was preparing to lead during the week, the Spirit nudged me that this was what was needed for the group. So this kind of word can come in advance, or it can happen in the moment. There are many ways that this can occur, but again… be lead by the Spirit.
Also – it’s OK to write your prayers out long hand and read them. This is a great way of learning how to pray. Later you may just use headings ( I still do this sometimes) and pray around a theme that is in context with the time of worship. This is vital, as it needs to connect with the worship journey, as well as the people.
The prayer I like to pray at the end of a worship segment, is one of commitment for the people of God to say “Yes” to God on the basis of His nature and character that you have just been singing about, even before they know what God is going to speak into their lives!! As a preacher, I want people to say “yes” to God front up, or transformation in their lives won’t take place. Psalm 95: 7b-8 encourages the worshippers to not harden their hearts if they hear His voice. We need to encourage our worshippers to do the same.