ONLINE LITURGY

CORPORATE PRAYER

Corporate prayer is one of the ways that we worship God in our church services as a community together. It draws us together to focus on who God is and to spend time bringing requests before him. It gives us the chance to model prayer to those who are less familiar with talking to God, and to encourage them to pray more. It’s also obviously a Biblical principle that God’s church should gather together to pray (Matthew 21:13,Acts 2:42,Ephesians 6:18,1 Timothy 2:1-3,Revelation 5:8).
Sometimes we’ll ask you to pray your own prayer, and sometimes we’ll ask you to pray a pre-prayed prayer (try saying that three times fast).

Praying your own prayer.

 Before you press record, there are some questions that we would love for you to consider, which will help you serve the church well, and hopefully calm the nerves a bit.

1. How long should I pray for: Around 2-4 minutes.

2. What should I pray for? Prayer is not just asking for stuff, prayer is also honest worship to our God. Here is a really great acronym to help you out: A-C-T-S

A – Adoration. Praising God for his character action.
C – Confession. Confessing our sins and failings before God (not personal ones).
T – Thanksgiving. Thanking God for the things he has given us, particularly for our new life in Jesus through the gospel. Thanking him for the material blessings he has given each of us and that we would be loving, godly, generous and wise in their use—both individually and as a church. 
S – Supplication. Praying for the needs of the others, including the needs of the church, the community, the nation, and the world. Praying for pertinent issues in our world. Praying for our leaders. Praying for God’s Church.

3. Do I need to prepare this? If you feel confident in praying ad-lib (spontaneous and unprepared), then we are more than happy for you to do that. To prevent rambling though, still try and stick to the above acronym. There is also great value in writing out the prayer and simply reading it out. There is nothing inauthentic about this—it is a helpful way to bless the community and to help articulate the things that are hard to express. Click below for an example prayer from November last year.

Praying a Pre-Prayed Prayed. 

You’ll notice that from time to time we’ll pray prayers that have actually been written by other people, sometimes from hundreds of years ago. We do this for a few different reasons:

1.     It teaches us and matures us in our prayer life. This is actually a really wonderful thing, because it helps us to understand more about what and how we can pray.

2.     It supplies words to feelings that are hard to articulate. Sometimes the words another person uses are exactly what I needed to pray, but couldn’t get the words out.

3.     It anchors us in the historical church and reminds us that for centuries Christians have been bringing their greatest needs in their darkest days to our good and loving Father. 

If you have been asked to pray a pre-prayed prayer, we will give it to you ahead of time. Rehearse it a couple of times and iron out any words that are maybe unclear. Speak loudly, slowly, and clearly. Make the prayer yours!

Praying through a Psalm

When we don’t have the words to say, praying through a Psalm is a rally effective way of letting God’s words control our thoughts, guide our tongues, and teach our hearts in prayer. Click the button below for an example.

BIBLE READING

The reason why we read scripture together is because, as Hebrews 4:12 puts is, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Having the word of God read to us is a wonderful blessing, and for a lot of the New Testament, this is how it was intended to be absorbed by the authors.

Some tips for Bible reading:

1. State clearly where you are reading it from. Something along the lines of “Today’s reading comes from...”

2. Don’t add your own commentary to it—just let God’s word speak.

3. Read it from an ESV Bible if possible. Let’s try and avoid phones.

4. Rehearse the reading a couple of times and speak clearly and emotively.

5. Take note that during this time of Online Church, the Bible Reading won’t always (if ever) be the passage that is being preached from. This particular Bible reading has been selected to complement the passage that is being preached from.

HOW TO FILM YOURSELF DOING THIS

While prayer and Bible reading might be fairly straightforward, filming this might not be. Here are some tips to help you out. Please not too, we are not looking for a super-duper Disney polish; in fact, a few hiccups and stumbles remind us that we’re doing this together, and we’re not about the showy show.

Here are three really important tips:

1. Get the camera lens at eye-level and try and rest it on something (avoid holding it with your hands). Use a mini tripod, a selfie stick that is propped up by something, or a stack of books and blue tac will do the job.

2. Make sure there’s decent lighting. If you yourself are facing a window with light coming in, that is the easiest way.

3. Speak loudly, clearly, and slowly. Good audio is more valuable than good video. If the neighbour is mowing, record it later.

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