The Place of Public Prayer
John Killinger
Worship is a vertical rite in which the individual is caught up in the very presence—feared, dreaded, or beloved—of the Deity. Thus worship is and must be prayer, for nothing short of communicating with the One being worshiped will suffice.
—John Killinger Preacher," said a man on the worship committee of one of my churches a few years ago, "I don't mean this personally, so no hard feelings, but I think about the most boring thing we do in our worship services is pray. Therefore I propose that we eliminate as many prayers from our services as we can and fill the time with other things." A stunned silence settled over the meeting. "Bob," I finally said, "you may be right. I'm not going to respond without giving what you said some thought. Why don't we schedule a time when we can all talk about it at length?" He appeared satisfied. After all, it was his first meeting with the committee, and he probably expected his suggestion to be shot down without dignity. Now, at least, his pastor had responded and promised to put it on the agenda for a later meeting. I confess I did have an immediate response, even though I chose not to voice it that evening: Man, you don't understand Christian worship at all! Christian worship is prayer. That's what our whole service is about. The hymns, responses, readings, offering, time of commitment—they're all a way of praying, of responding to God for his gracious gift to us. But I knew nothing would be lost by delaying the discussion. In fact, at least two things eventually were gained. One, I was prepared for a more generous, thoughtful discussion than we might have had that first night. And, two. Bob found time to come up to speed with other committee members. Upon learning more about the theology ...
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