I was asked to lead the congregational prayer this past Sunday. While I do work at a church, my main focus is not on leading worship or being a public face each during worship - something I am quite at peace with. But it is important for the congregation to get to know me both in and out of the worship context, so I agreed to lead the prayer.
Confession Time:
Praying in front of people is one of my least favorite things to do. I get clammy and nervous. I worry about sounding stupid or saying something theologically incorrect. Even in front of my immediate family I get nervous. During an pastoral internship last summer, the church asked for prayer requests every Sunday before the congregational prayer. As the pastoral intern, I took the requests, wrote them down, and added them to my prayer. It was the most stressful part of the internship for me.
So when asked to do the congregational prayer this past week, I sucked it up and said yes. I spent part of Saturday evening and a large portion of Sunday morning writing and rewriting and rewriting the prayer. I asked my roommate to read over it. I was still adding and crossing out things during the sermon.
And then I walked up to the pulpit, set down my manuscript, asked the people to pray with me, and began reading my prayer.
Except it was like it wasn't me reading it. I could hear my voice, I could see the words in front of me, I could hear the pausing, the particular pronunciations and inflections, I could feel my hands shaking, but it wasn't me saying the words. I can't particularly explain it except to say I love when the Holy Spirit takes over.
A man came up to me after the service, thanked me for the prayer, and recited a particular part back to me. It's an odd feeling to hear the words you labored over come back to you.
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