Every now and again I like to share an example of a pastoral prayer from Grace Fellowship Church. I do this because there are few examples of pastoral prayers online and I thought these may serve to inspire themes, passages, or ideas as other pastors and elders prepare to lead their churches in prayer. Please feel free to use or to adapt these prayers however you see fit. Here is one pastor Paul Martin prayed before our church not too long ago. (See here for other examples)
Lord God,
Thank you for the gift of prayer and allowing us to approach you now with our words and our hearts. We are all here looking to you, O God. Open your ears to our praises and petitions. Hear us as we pray.
We are so grateful that you have made yourself known to us. We praise you for your perfect Word, our Bibles. Thank you for truth and clarity and knowledge. We don’t live in the dark, and that is only because you have turned on the lights for us. What a privilege to live in this uncertain world with certainty and conviction and hope. We love knowing who you are and what you have done.
We praise you for sending your beloved and only Son, that we might have a Saviour. How we needed a Saviour, not just an example or life coach or wise sage. We needed saving and you sent your own Son to die for our sins. We will never get over how much you love us. So we praise you for being our Creator. We are not accidents, we are yours! We praise you for being our lawgiver, that we might learn how to live. We praise you for your profound patience, so that many may to come to repentance.
At the same time, Lord, we are thinking of the many in this world, even the many in this room, who have not repented from their sins and trusted in that Saviour. People who have heard lots about Jesus but never trusted in Jesus. O Lord have mercy on their souls. Even today, send your Spirit to save the lost. Bring them all the way to Jesus. Just as Joshua stood before the people and told them to choose this day whom they would serve—their idols or the real God—Lord, bring the doubting, or skeptical or denying to the crossroads today and graciously enable them to say, “I choose Jesus!”
Bring reviving in our friendships and relationships here at Grace Fellowship Church, Lord. Help the sister who feels lonely to find a sister to share life with. Give that brother that has been going solo a brother to confess his sins to and pray with.
And as our members go to the local nursing home to love the residents there, bless them in their service. We pray, O God, that you would snatch many from the fire, just as you saved that thief on the cross, save many of the residents, even those who perhaps cannot express that faith with their words anymore, but most definitely with their hearts.
As we pray for them, we ask that you would stop the euthanasia in our country. Revoke Medical Assistance in Dying. We assume this would take an action of our government, so we pray for our new Prime Minister and ask that you might use him to overturn the legislation that allows for this killing. Take the heart of Mr. Carney as you took the heart of Nebudchenezzar of old, and surprise us all by using him to advance your good in this land. Have mercy on him, Lord. Save him, his wife and his children. Let him lead this country in a way that we can live peaceful and quiet lives, being godly and dignified in every way.
And now help us to shake off all the silly distractions and discouragements that lead us to only see what is right in front of us, and show us Christ, Christ our Lord and King, sitting on your throne, waiting for us, who will look us in our eyes and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Lift up our eyes to that Great Day when all the saints from all of time will stand about that throne and exalt the one who gave his life for us. Lift up our eyes to get just a glimpse of glory today, a glimpse of what awaits those who love the Lord. Show us more of you by opening your word to us. Make us hearers who do what you say. Lord God, you are everything to us. There is none like you. So come now and help your people.
This we ask in the Name of the One who gave his life for us, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
