Keep It Simple

Overview:

It’s worth looking at the balance of creative material in your service. If other aspects of the service include plenty of creative material then gathering, confession or intercession activities can be kept very simple. Here are a couple of ideas:

Gathering & Confession:

  1. Use a simple extemporary prayer.
  2. Use a pre-written prayer with a call and response element to it. There are plenty of examples on the Church of England website.

Intercessions:

  1. Simply include the intercessions as one of the prayer stations. When you re-gather, all say the Lord’s Prayer together.
  2. Ask people to say things that they would like to include in the intercessions and write them on a large sheet of paper, like a flipchart at the front. Say a prayer including all of the things mentioned, then invite everyone to join in the Lord’s Prayer.
  3. Come with your own written prayer. There’s no rule that absolutely everything has to be creative and interactive. Sometimes it’s a good balance if some parts are less so.