Teleprompting prayers
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
There are two kinds of preachers in the world: those who write out their pastoral prayers beforehand, and those who pray extemporaneously.Ok, so that's a bit of an oversimplification. But I've found that people (both pastors and laity) can have strong opinions one way or the other.
Those who think all prayers should be offered without preparation often argue that the Holy Spirit works best 'in the moment,' and that preachers should open their hearts to pray on behalf of the congregation in the way the Spirit directs them in a particular worship setting.
On the other hand, those who believe in written prayers tend to emphasize that the Holy Spirit works just as effectively through the kind of careful discernment that goes on in the pastor's study, as the prayer is being written with the confession, petition, praise and thanksgiving of the congregation in mind. (I also recently heard a preacher cite Matthew 6:7-15 as an argument against extemporaneous prayer, although I think that is a bad reading of that text.)
In my own ministry, I've done both. Recently, in fact. During our Holy Week services, I used a lot of written prayers, simply because there are beautiful ones out there related to the great moments of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. Because they use images and allusions from Scripture in such beautifully poetic fashion, I find that offering liturgical prayers in specific seasons of the Christian year can express the church's praise and thanksgiving better than I could ever hope to do.
But my standard practice for pastoral prayers week in and week out is to pray extemporaneously. I do that in part because my congregation pauses in the middle of worship to offer individual witnesses of praise and to lift up prayer concerns. I write notes about those testimonies of praise and prayer during the service and then incorporate them into my prayer. I have found that this allows me to pray a prayer that is more fully of the whole congregation. And it also ensures that the pastoral prayer speaks to the particular joys, thanksgivings, concerns, and petitions of the church in that given week.
I've been thinking about the issue of how we pray in worship since I read a column on Barack Obama's use of a teleprompter by the Washington Post's Michael Gerson. In his column, Gerson pushes back on those who deride Obama's dependence on the teleprompter, arguing that the "careful sorting of ideas and priorities" that written remarks reflect, whether at news conferences or in full-length speeches, is an essential part of the craft of governing.
Gerson is a former presidential speechwriter, of course. So he is hardly unbiased. But what about introducing the teleprompter to church? Sermons, even pastoral prayers, could be scrolled down a couple of screens set at covenient angles in front of the pulpit! And then we could have the best of both worlds - the appearence of extemporaneous eloquence with the grounding of a carefully crafted text.
How is it that nobody's doing this yet??
Gerson is a former presidential speechwriter, of course. So he is hardly unbiased. But what about introducing the teleprompter to church? Sermons, even pastoral prayers, could be scrolled down a couple of screens set at covenient angles in front of the pulpit! And then we could have the best of both worlds - the appearence of extemporaneous eloquence with the grounding of a carefully crafted text.
How is it that nobody's doing this yet??
Labels: Barack Obama, Holy Week, Prayers, Teleprompters
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 1:42 PM
12 Comments:
I am dying to use a teleprompter. I cannot preach without notes, although I have tried. My personality and preaching skills work best with well thought out manuscripts. A teleprompter would be ideal! How does one work and could it be accessible to small congregations?
On the side of prayers, I use both. I agree with you that on high holy days of the church calendar I like to use written prayers. But my congregations do praises and concerns as well and I like to go off the cuff with those.
The truth is, no matter what way people preach or pray, the Holy Spirit is at work!
There were teleprompters on the platform at General Conference. Not everyone used them, but they were used.
We can barely get words to appear on a screen, projected with minimal equipment--I can hardly imagine my tech people's chagrin if I asked them to get a teleprompter working too!
Besides--I like to move around too much for a teleprompter to be able to follow me. Perhaps when we get the kind of teleprompter that can be attached to a invisibly projected screen in front of me or projected from my glasses. :-)
As someone who's never preached a sermon but will soon, I'd say that for sermons, a teleprompter would be great for certain pastors, particularly those who like to preach from the pulpit. But frankly, for prayers? Prayers need to come from the heart, and maybe taking some notes helps people remember certain things, but people need to believe that the pastor has been moved by the experience of the service itself, and that's only done when a prayer is spontaneous (and people can tell when you're reading a telemprompter).
Teleprompting prayers was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. I would imagine that, even for those who do write out pastoral prayers in the way I describe in the post, the old 'bowing of the head' would rule out a teleprompter!
I preach in a small church, so this shapes my answer.
I pray both ways - sometimes in the same service. When I preach, I don't particulary enjoy using a manuscript - so doubt I'd like a teleprompter.
My sermon is more eloquent when written out. But I get caught in the text and lose a connection and a give-and-take with the congregation. I end up speaking at them rather than with them.
Well, I've preached with a teleprompter--or let's say I tried to preach with a teleprompter. I hated it. I had to stick word for word to the manuscript so that the person running the prompter knew when to go to the next slide! I tried it once or twice and then gave up and learned to preach without notes.
That being said. My opinion is that worship is best served by a good balance of written and extemporaneous prayers. In my current church, I mainly pray off the cuff but I find that while my prayers are too parochial and shallow especially since the lay leader always prays a prayer for the joys and concerns of the community.
I think the other issue that you didn't really talk about is worship style. For instance, at our church we have four distinct worship styles (we call them worship languages). In two of the styles, written prayers would work really well. In the service I lead, a modern service with a high level of production with the moving lights and the fog machine moving, a written prayer would never work.(this is what the setting looks like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/venue68)
Written communion liturgy also doesn't work. There has to be a level of emotion that is almost impossible to achieve through a written prayer. That's not to say, I haven't written down what I want to say/pray, but I don't carry anything up with me when I go. I know where my prayer is going but have to "perform" when on stage in a way that a written prayer would hold me back.
One other thought, my Board of Ordained Ministry doesn't like that I don't use written prayers, but that is a whole other issue of how they think that worship leadership is consistent from one style to the next. Worship leaders have to "perform" differently depending on the style they are leading.
Teleprompters are an interesting idea, but this posting made me think of another possibility--How could pastors effectively make use of a speechwriter? After all, the Presidents have all had speechwriters. Could we put the gifts and talents of some wonderful congregation members to work in a similar way? Has anyone had success with this idea already?
yes, very much so. The speech writers name is Rick Warren. You can buy his sermons on the internet. People do it all the time. :-)
oh Rick, the least you could do was login...=)
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