Modeling Prayer

If you do a Pastoral Prayer every Sunday after awhile you eventually realize that you are stuck in a bit of a rut. In order to break out of that rut and to start to take seriously the Pastor’s role in teaching people to pray, I’ve begun using some models for my prayer. I teach them to my congregation and then pray them by example.

In the past I’ve used the Lord’s Prayer in this way going through it phrase by phrase and saying prayers along the lines of that phrase. This week I used the “Five Finger Prayer.” In this prayer, we pray using the:

1. Thumb – this is the finger closest to you, so we pray for those who are closest to us, such as our mother, father, brothers, sisters, and grandparents.

2. Index finger — This is our pointing finger, so we pray for those who point the way for us, such as parents, teachers, pastors, policemen, bus drivers, crossing guards, and so on.

3. Middle finger – this is the biggest finger of all, so we pray for those with big responsibilities, such as our president, government leaders, and others who govern us.

4. Fourth finger – this is the weakest of all our fingers, so we pray for those who are weak, such as those who are sick, those who are sad and alone, those who are in hospitals and rest homes, and those who are poor and starving and forgotten by others.

5. Little pinky — this is the little finger, and it comes last. The Bible tells us we ought to put others ahead of ourselves, so we ought to pray for others first and then pray for ourselves.

I noticed that a number of people followed along as I taught the prayer and a few said after the service that they would remember it in their prayer time.