COMPOSED OR EXTEMPORANEOUS?

Sunday, at the Collegium, we discussed composed versus extemporaneous prayers, focusing on possible reasons for the near exclusive use of extemporaneous prayers in our tradition. We landed on four:

• The free-church has an anti-liturgy bias.
• Read prayers can easily become rote.
• Extemporaneous prayers allow for more creativity.
• The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:5-15) is a template upon which extemporaneous prayers can be based.

Further discussion is needed (1) evaluating the biblical validity of these reasons, (2) deciding a proper biblical balance between composed and extemporaneous, and (3) determining the place of both styles in corporate gatherings.

The discussion continues August 24.



Tag(s): prayer liturgy extemporaneous prayer

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