Welcome to Ask the Church, our series where we seek to answer your questions on church worship, practice, and theology in around five minutes.
Today's question is about praying pre-written prayers:
Why do we do it? Isn't it inauthentic? Why don't we just pray from the heart?
Authenticity and Prayer
This is a question that, actually, I think a lot of Americans would probably sympathize with. As a people, we tend to value spontaneity and authenticity. We value our own subjective understanding of the situation. We want to do things that are real and heartfelt—that spring from within us.
And so, sometimes, when we're given somebody else's words to pray, it can feel like it's not really prayer. It may feel inauthentic—because it’s not flowing directly from my heart.
Where Did Pre-Written Prayers Come From?
The basic answer is: from the Scriptures and the Apostles.
Let me give you an example. In Acts 4, Peter and John have experienced persecution for the first time in the name of Jesus. They return to the assembly of believers and report what happened. Immediately, what wells up in the people is a prayer to God. And in that prayer, they begin quoting the language of Psalm 2, praying it back to God—because it fits their situation (Acts 4:24–26; Psalm 2:1–2).
Or take an even more fundamental example. The disciples say to Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” And Jesus responds by giving them the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1–4; Matthew 6:9–13). In other words, praying with someone else’s words is something we see from the very beginning of the Church—and it’s something that comes from Jesus Himself.
A Deeply Biblical Practice
It actually predates even the Church! For centuries, the Jewish people had been using the Psalms as their prayer language. These were the prayers they offered in the temple. They were the prayers they used in daily life—working in their fields, in their shops. Praying the words of previous generations was part and parcel of how the people of God worshiped and approached Him.
The Church simply continued this pattern. The Apostles continued it. And so, when did the Church start using pre-written prayers? The answer is: from the very beginning. Why? Because it’s in the Scriptures! There’s a whole book of prayers—the Psalms. There’s the Lord’s Prayer. These are means of approaching God using the language of the saints who came before us.
Isn’t Singing Hymns the Same?
Let me just point out—kind of with a laugh—that every time we sing a hymn or a song together, we’re already praying with someone else’s words.
Our hymns and songs are mostly prayers to God. Look at the lyrics—we're addressing God directly in most of them. And of course, we wouldn’t be able to sing in unison if no one had written the words down for us ahead of time.
In other words, every time the Church has sung together, we’ve been praying pre-written prayers. Praying in unison actually requires that we agree upon the words before we speak them. It would be very difficult to pray together without this shared language.
Not Just Public, But Private Too
But it's not just about corporate prayer—like the Acts 4 moment or singing a hymn together. Sometimes we need the pre-written language of previous generations in our own individual lives, too.
This is where learning to pray from the Psalms becomes so important. But it’s not just the Psalms—the hymns, songs, and prayers handed down by the Church can also shape our private prayers.
Why? Because our personal prayers can easily become narrow and self-centered. We tend to focus only on our immediate needs and perspectives. The wisdom of the saints before us helps break us out of that. It helps us pray in broader ways—for needs we might otherwise forget, with words and images we might never think of on our own.
What’s the Danger?
Of course, there is a danger in praying pre-written prayers: that we would recite the words without meaning them.
But that danger also exists with the hymns we sing—and even with our spontaneous, from-the-heart prayers. Any time we speak to God, we can drift into speaking thoughtlessly, without really engaging our hearts.
The solution to that isn’t to throw away the words. The solution is to throw our hearts into the process—to speak the words meaningfully, to reflect on them, to wrestle with them as we pray.
A Gift, Not a Replacement
Praying pre-written prayers expands our prayer life. It’s a way of mimicking the example of Jesus’s disciples. It honors the Lord’s Prayer. It honors the prayer language of the Psalms. It connects us with the Church of the past.
Of course, it’s not the only way to pray. Personal and spontaneous prayer is important. Silence is an important mode of prayer. There are many modes of prayer. But pre-written prayers matter too—because they help us grow. They help us pray in unison. And they help us see how God’s people have prayed across the ages.
I hope this answer helps. If you have other questions, please send them to steven@incarnationrichmond.org.
And now, go in the grace of our Lord.