East Clandon Intercessions Training

What are intercessions?

The common feature in all of these forms of prayer is that they are addressed to God. In the prayers of intercession, we don’t offer an address or sermon, we are leading the people of God in prayer to God, we are trying to voice the prayers of the congregation, so direct your prayers to God.

When you lead the prayers of intercession you are, first and foremost, praying, and the best public praying is rooted in private prayer. This might seem obvious, but before you do anything else (e.g. read the bible readings, news paper, a helpful book of set intercessions or even the church intercessions book), do spend a short time praying. Pray for the church (both our congregation and the wider church), for those you know are in need, for somewhere in the world which is on your heart. Archbishop Michael Ramsey eloquently described intercessory prayer as ‘… coming to God with the people on your heart and coming to the people with God on your heart.’ Whenever you are leading intercessions, the best place to start is with the people, places and situations which are on your heart.

What type of language should I use? Because you are gathering the prayers of the people together and giving public voice to them, try to make the prayers relevant to the congregation and also in language which makes natural sense:

How would you define the following? Supplication

Thanksgiving

Imprecation

Intercession

Rewrite this prayer in intelligible English: O Almighty God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark; Give us grace that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What subjects should I cover? Remember that these are prayers of intercession – expressions of concern for the world, the church, and those in any sort of need.

This verse of Archbishop Stephen Langton’s Golden Sequence’ serves as a good reminder for the sorts of things we should include in our prayers:

What is soiled, make Thou pure; What is wounded, work its cure; What is parched, fructify; What is rigid, gently bend; What is frozen, warmly tend; Strengthen what goes erringly.

We pray for the corrupt, the broken, the desolate, the harsh, those who are unloved and those who have gone astray.

More specifically, intercessions generally fall into the following categories:

- The Church - The World - The Locality - The Sick - The Departed

For each of these, it is best to keep your intercessions succinct. So you might include two specific intentions for the church (Our bishop and another parish/church/church issue). In the prayers for the world, it is probably a good idea to keep an eye on the news over the week before you lead intercessions in case there is a particular need which ought to be remembered – but there is no need to list all the needy places you can find in the papers. Prayers for the locality could include prayer for forthcoming events, a local fundraising attempt, a group in particular need, are GCSE or A-Level results due out this week? Prayer for those in physical, mental or spiritual need (i.e. “the sick”) are a particularly important part of the prayers of intercession. These should be church members, local people or people known to us. You shouldn’t include names of people if you don't think they would like to be prayed for publicly.

These are the headlines from the the Telegraph website 11.2.2014

- Money no object in battle to end flooding misery, says Cameron - Women bishops plan fast-tracked - Tube strike cancelled after last-minute talks - Ofsted targets scruffy teachers

Pick a headline and write an intercession relating to it

Should anything else shape my prayers? Intercessions happen within the context of a larger service which will contain certain themes. You might consider picking up some of those themes in your intercessions, though you needn’t slavishly follow themes – again, what we are doing is praying for others, not trying to create a symphony. So after you have prayed and thought about the needs of the church, world and local community, you might like to: - Read the bible readings for the service – are there any themes which seem obvious? - Think about the season (Christmas, Easter etc.) and the hymns. Are there themes you want to pick

up? - Speak to the preacher – what will be the focus of their sermon? - Check the intercessions book – Are there names of people to pray for or a church to pray for in the

diocesan cycle of prayer?

How long should the prayers of intercession last? The prayers of intercession should, ideally be shorter than the sermon. Somewhere between three and five minutes is ideal. Ten minutes is too long.

What about leaving space for silence? Remember that you are gathering the people’s prayers before God. It is entirely appropriate to leave short silences for the congregation to pray for people, places and situations on their own hearts. About five to ten seconds is good – though this will probably seem uncomfortably long to you.

How should I start and end the prayers? Invitations It is good to start your intercessions with a written invitation to prayer. The standard Common worship formula is “In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father.” You may want to use something different such as “In peace, let us pray to the Lord”, or to write your own invitation to prayer. Whatever you do, make sure it is brief, non preachy and actually invites people to pray.

Part of this Sunday’s Gospel Reading: “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

How would you relate this passage to a current issue in the church or world?

Raise your hand after ten seconds of silence – don’t count!

Responses If you plan to use a response throughout your prayers other than “Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer”, or “Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us”, then make sure that you rehearse it at the start of your intercessions, e.g.:

“In response to ‘God of Love’, we say ‘hear our prayer’”

Please feel free to write your own responses to your intercessions. These might pick up a theme from the readings, hymns or the season. If you do, make sure that they are brief, ideally no more than eight words in total (four for the bidding, four for the response).

Endings The standard way to end the prayers of intercession is with “Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our saviour, Jesus Christ.” As with the invitations and responses, it is absolutely fine to simply use the standard option. If you are more adventurous, you might want to end the prayers with a ‘collect’ type prayer. You can find eight of these on pages 288 and 289 of the main Common Worship volume (look in the Rector’s stall). This is a good example:

Almighty God, you have promised to hear the prayers of those who ask in your Son’s name: We pray that what we have asked faithfully We ma obtain effectually; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

If you have access to the internet, this CofE website has lots of ideas www.tinyurl.com/pqkhuac

Dos and Don’ts Do – pray as you prepare, be yourself, keep it simple Don’t – give news bulletins, get political, preach a sermon, fear leaving silence, be afraid of making it too simple/short, try to include too much

If you end up feeling that you could have done better, you are a normal human being.

The Rector feels this way after every service he leads!

The Church is God’s family, not an audience, and people will be more tolerant (or even unaware) of mistakes

than you will be.

Write a response for intercessions which on the theme of God bring peace to the world.