People who worship in liturgical churches are familiar with a type of prayer called a “collect” (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable). A collect is a brief summary prayer. They’re used in many liturgical services. The book of common prayer contains collects for the various services of the year. Often we non-liturgical types struggle to pray with depth and purpose when we pray extemporaneously. In his book “A Generous Orthodoxy” Brian MacLaren skewers the shallow prayers of many of us. “And we just ask that you just bless us and just be here with us and we just want to just thank you for just being such a good God who just loves us and we just…” One thing that has helped me pray with more purpose is to use the structure of the collect in my prayers when leading worship.  Here is a collect from the Book of Common Prayer which we’ll use as our example:

“O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The collect has five parts:

1. The Address – This is simply where we address God.  In our example the address is simply “O God”
2. An Attribute or Description – here we say something about God.  From our example: “whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread”
3. A Request – This is what we are asking from God.  “Open the eyes of our faith”
4. The result – the expected outcome of the request or why we’re asking “that we may behold him in all his redeeming work”
5. Closing doxology – this can be as simple as “In Jesus name, amen” or like our example: “who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

Once you are familiar with the structure it isn’t difficult to compose your own collect “on the fly”.  It may not be as eloquent and erudite as the collects in the Book of Common Prayer, but it will give depth and purpose to your prayer. I use this form in my own personal times of prayer and I’ve begun to use this form in leading worship.  It helps when using this form in leading worship to give some thought beforehand to the five parts of prayer rather than trying to come up with them totally on the fly.  It will take some work, but the rewards are worth it.  Often we musician-worship leaders are more than willing to work on our musical chops.  We also need to work on our praying chops.

And now, a closing prayer:

“Almighty God, who gives wisdom to all who ask for it: Help us to pray to you with fervency and clarity, so that we may see your goodness and mercy as you answer us.  We ask it in the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen.”

I had a paper due this week in which one of my sources was Vatican II document on worship, also known as Sacrosanctum Concilium. You can read up on the Second Vatican Council here. One of the four “constitutions that the council delivered was their statement on the “Sacred Liturgy”. The council write thats the the clergy must be “thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy”. That phrase “thoroughly imbued” was echoing through my mind as I rehearsed on Thursday night for our service this Sunday. How thoroughly imbued have I been this week?

What a challenge to us as worship leaders. The document also talks a lot about “full, active, conscious participation” in worship so that the people may be “enriched” by it. Many of the reforms instituted by Vatican II – most notably the movement away from the use of Latin to the vernacular – were motivated by this consideration. Sacrosanctum Concilium contains much fodder for the evangelical worship leader, and I encourage you to read it. It is less than 30 pages and it is available online here.

Hey Gang, thanks to photographer extraordinaire Brian Robertson there are some snazzy photos of the CD release concert in the gallery section of the site. Check them out!

We had a great time at the release concert on Sunday night.  We had a good crowd out and really enjoyed ourselves.  It was awesome to play the songs live and tell the stories of each one.  And we had an awesome time afterwards eating and hanging out.  I’m so grateful to the army of people who worked to put it all together.  I’m exhausted after a really busy week, but I’m so grateful to all the people who’ve been a part of putting the project together.  I’ll post pics real soon!

It’s been a really busy as things are ramping up to the CD release concert.  I’m playing at the Christian and Missionary Alliance General Assembly all this week.  The convention opened up last night and I had the chance to lead “Jesus Only”.  It was great to share the song with the Canadian Alliance family

I also did a short radio interview this morning on CHRI with Dan Adams.  He asked some pretty tough questions though!  CHRI has been really supportive and a joy to work with.  And the single “This is Worship” was number 20 on their countdown last week!

It’s an exciting time and I’m praying for a great time on Sunday night.  I hope you’ll be there if you’re in the area!