Pastoral Prayers: 15 Models for Praying on Behalf of a Congregation
A pastoral prayer is the long prayer of the service, in which one voice carries the whole congregation's thanksgiving, grief, and intercession to God.
Where it goes in the service
Typically after the scripture reading or the offering, and before the sermon or communion. Usually three to five minutes. Many churches close it by inviting the congregation into the Lord's Prayer.
What is a pastoral prayer?
The pastoral prayer — also called the prayers of the people, the great prayer, or simply the morning prayer — is the extended intercessory prayer near the middle of a service. One person prays aloud on behalf of everyone present.
It is the most demanding element in the service to do well, because it has to hold a room in which someone got engaged this week and someone else buried a parent. A pastoral prayer that only celebrates abandons the grieving; one that only laments exhausts everyone else.
The traditional shape moves outward and then back in: adoration, thanksgiving, confession, then intercession for the world, the nation, the church, the sick and suffering, and finally this congregation — ending in the Lord's Prayer.
4 pastoral prayers you can use this Sunday
Free to copy, print, and project. Scripture is quoted from public-domain translations, so no permission is required.
The Classic Shape (outline)
Structure1. Adoration — name who God is, using an attribute from the day's scripture. 2. Thanksgiving — for creation, for Christ, and for two or three specific things from this week in this church. 3. Confession — brief, corporate, honest. 4. Intercession for the world — war, disaster, the suffering that is in the news. 5. Intercession for the church — this congregation, its leaders, the wider church. 6. Intercession for the hurting — the sick, the grieving, the unemployed, named where you have permission. 7. Petition for ourselves — that we would be the answer to some of what we just prayed. 8. Close in the name of Jesus, into the Lord's Prayer.
— Original
A Full Pastoral Prayer
All-purposeEternal God, you were God before there was anyone to say so, and you will be God when we have all fallen silent. We praise you. We thank you for this week — for ordinary mercies we forgot to notice, for work and rest, for bread, for the people who love us anyway. We confess we have lived as though this were all ours. Forgive us. We pray for a world in trouble: for places at war, for people fleeing homes they will not see again, for those making decisions today that will cost other people their lives. Have mercy. We pray for your church — for this congregation, for the ones we disagree with, for pastors who are close to quitting. Hold them. We pray for our own: for those in hospital beds this morning; for those waiting on results; for those grieving someone whose absence still has a shape; for those who came in this morning with a face that gives nothing away. You know their names. We ask you to be near. And make us useful. Do not let us pray for the hungry and go home full and unbothered. We ask all of it in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven…
— Original
Pastoral Prayer After a Public Tragedy
TragedyGod, we do not have words this morning, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We hold before you what has happened. We hold before you the families whose lives divided this week into before and after. We hold before you the first responders, the doctors, the ones who will not sleep well again. We do not ask you to explain. We ask you to be there — in the hospital corridor, in the kitchen at 3am, in the silence where an answer will not come. And we confess that we grow used to this. Do not let us grow used to this. Come quickly, Lord. Amen.
— Original
Pastoral Prayer of Thanksgiving
ThanksgivingGenerous God, everything we have was given, and most of it we did not ask for. We thank you for this ground and this harvest, for the people at our tables and the empty chairs that mean we loved someone. We thank you for the year that has not gone how we planned, and for what you have done in it anyway. Make us grateful in a way that shows up in our calendars and our giving, and not only in our prayers. Amen.
— Original
How to write your own
- 1Write it out. Extemporaneous pastoral prayers drift toward the pastor's own preoccupations and toward filler ("Lord, we just…"). Writing it is not a lack of faith; it is preparation.
- 2Gather real material during the week. Keep a running list of what people in the congregation are actually facing, and pray about several of them by category if not by name.
- 3Get permission before naming anyone in a health or family crisis. Assume nothing, including for people who have shared publicly elsewhere.
- 4Include the grieving every single week, even in a good season. There is always someone, and they are listening for whether this room has room for them.
- 5Move outward before you move inward. World, nation, church, then us — it keeps the prayer from becoming a congregational status update.
- 6End somewhere the congregation can join you. The Lord's Prayer is the standard, and it returns the prayer to the whole body.
- 7Cut the filler words. "Just," "really," and "Father God" as punctuation are the three biggest offenders, and reading from a written text removes all of them at once.
How different traditions handle it
Anglican and Lutheran services use the Prayers of the People, often with a fixed congregational response after each petition ("Lord, in your mercy — hear our prayer"). Presbyterian and Methodist services usually have a single spoken pastoral prayer ending in the Lord's Prayer. Baptist and non-denominational churches vary widely, from a full written prayer to a brief extemporaneous one. Many contemporary churches have quietly dropped the long prayer altogether — the most common critique of which is that nothing else in the service does what it did.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a pastoral prayer be?
Three to five minutes in most congregations. Under two minutes it cannot do the work; past six, attention collapses unless the congregation is trained to a responsive form.
Should I name specific people?
Only with explicit permission, and be conservative about health details. A good default is naming the situation without naming the person: "for the family in this church waiting on a diagnosis this week."
Is it acceptable to read a pastoral prayer?
Yes, and it is usually better. Most of the prayers Christians have treasured for centuries were written down. Preparation is a form of care for the people you are praying on behalf of.
What is the difference between a pastoral prayer and prayers of the people?
Mostly form. A pastoral prayer is one continuous prayer by one voice; prayers of the people are broken into petitions with a spoken congregational response between them. The content covered is much the same.
Keep a record of what was actually said
The pastoral prayer you wrote is in your notes. The sermon that went with it usually isn't. Transcribe every service and build a searchable archive your congregation can go back to — the Church Plan is $19/month for as many sermons as you preach.
Related parts of the service
Prayers of Confession
A prayer of confession is the moment in worship when a congregation names its sin together and then hears the assurance of pardon — honesty followed immediately by grace.
Invocation Prayers
An invocation is a short opening prayer asking God to be present and at work in the gathering that is about to begin.
Closing Prayers for Church Services
A closing prayer gathers up what happened in a service and sends the congregation into the week with it.
Benedictions
A benediction is the spoken blessing that sends a congregation out at the end of worship — not a closing prayer, but a pronouncement of God's favor over his people.
Everything else in the service
Planning the rest of the service
- Sermon resources for all 66 books — themes, famous chapters, and preaching notes to pair with the readings.
- Sermon length calculator — check the service fits the time you actually have.
- Sermon outline generator — turn a text and a big idea into a preaching outline.
- Sermon series ideas — plan a season, then build the liturgy around it.