Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include some excellent books from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: Poetry of Redemption)
The Clay-Pot Conspiracy
Dave Harvey: “One year ago, we lost our youngest daughter to her longstanding battle against addiction. Walking alongside her in this multiyear struggle sank us into parts of this broken world we never dreamed we would inhabit. Dark places with desperate people became familiar terrain. We fought for life. Death won. Now our precious daughter is gone. Each morning I stare into the eyes of her 2-year-old son, now entrusted to us.”
Ed Sheeran, the MCG, and Jesus
I enjoyed this reflection. “Embedded in Melbourne’s memory is the largest crowd ever to gather at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Last night Ed Sheeran lit up the G for 105,000 people. What a number! And he’s repeating the feat tonight with another 100,000 fans singing along to the pop star and his acoustic guitar.”
World Nature Photography Awards
Such beauty.
The Problem with Proverbs
“What a unique treasure we have in the book of Proverbs! No other book of the Bible is as intensely practical as Proverbs. No other book presents such tremendous hope in the mundane parts of life. And no other book presents its material in quite the jumbled mess Proverbs appears to be.” It also offers some unique difficulties.
Tips for Getting Out of a Devotional Rut
“We know reading God’s Word and talking with Him in prayer are precious privileges. What can we do when they seem just part of the day’s routine?” Here are some ideas from Barbara.
Get Into God’s Word
And, in a similar vein, here are some tips on getting into God’s Word.
Flashback: When Parents Feel Like We Are Mostly Failing Most of the Time
I’m convinced the great majority of us feel like we are failing most of the time. We’ve got this deep gut feeling that our kids are spending way too much of their childhoods tapping on glowing glass rectangles.

The gospel of Jesus does not just free us from hell someday; it can also free us from sin today. . . . We are not who we used to be, so we do not have to do what we used to do. —Garrett Kell

With the Easter season fast approaching,  I thought I would share a sweet poem by Robert Herrick that considers the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice along with the reality that we still suffer. Here is how he thought about these truths.

Have, have ye no regard, all yeWho pass this way, to pity me,Who am a man of misery!
A man both bruised, and broke, and oneWho suffers not here for mine own,But for my friends’ transgression!
Ah! Sions Daughters, do not fearThe cross, the cords, the nails, the spear,The myrrh, the gall, the vinegar:
For Christ, your loving Saviour, hathDrunk up the wine of God’s fierce wrath;Only, there’s left a little froth,
Less for to taste, than for to show,What bitter cups had been your due,Had He not drunk them up for you.

Of all the elements that once made up traditional Protestant worship, there is probably none that has fallen on harder times than prayer. It is not unusual to visit a church today and find that prayer is perfunctory, rare, or absent altogether. If that is true of prayer in general, it is particularly true of the pastoral prayer.
The pastoral prayer is an opportunity for a pastor to intercede on behalf of his congregation and bring their concerns before the Lord—to pray for his people with his people. This means it is often a comparatively lengthy prayer, which is why it is sometimes known as the “long prayer.” It may include each of the standard elements of a well-rounded prayer—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication—but it may also leave some out if they have already been included in the service in other ways. It will usually bring to God the particular cares of specific members of the church, the general concerns of the whole congregation, and the wider concerns of God’s Kingdom.
By way of counsel:

Because a pastoral prayer is a lengthy and intentional form of prayer, most pastors will need to put effort into preparing it in advance. Some will write out their whole prayer while others will simply prepare an outline or a list of bullet points. Few will find they have the ability to pray skillfully or serve their congregation adequately when they do so entirely spontaneously and without any preparation.
It is often best to frame the prayer around a particular theme (e.g. God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s patience) or around a particular passage, perhaps echoing some of the themes of the key verses.
A prayer of around 5 minutes or 800-1,000 words is a reasonable length in most settings.
Pastors will want to consider whether they pray in the first person plural or third personal plural (i.e. “I bring our petitions before you” or “I bring their petitions before you.”). They will generally want to avoid the first person singular (i.e. “I bring my petitions before you.”).
Pastors should understand that, while their prayers are directed to God, they are also quietly teaching the congregation to pray. There is a responsibility to not only pray, but also to teach. Thus, they will want to model the kind of prayer they’d like to hear the people praying.
Consider keeping a copy of your prayers, returning to them a couple of years into the future, and freshening them up to make use of them a second time.

I am convinced that the neglect of the pastoral prayer, often because it is regarded as boring and irrelevant to unbelievers, has been detrimental to the church. I am always blessed to visit a congregation for which it continues to be a key element of worship and I encourage every church to integrate it into every service.
Inspiration & Examples
Over the years, I have shared a collection of pastoral prayers that were prayed by one of the elders at Grace Fellowship Church. These are not meant to be textbook examples, but rather real-world examples from normal pastors in a normal church. While I would not recommend simply duplicating one of these prayers and praying it at your own church, I do think there is value in reading examples, being inspired by them, and even adopting some of their structure or elements. You are free to do that with any of these:

Here are a few other resources on the pastoral prayer you may find helpful. Their relative scarcity is probably proof that the pastoral prayer has indeed fallen on hard times and would benefit from greater attention.

However, like so much of life and ministry, the best way to learn to prepare and deliver a pastoral prayer is through experimentation, experience, and feedback.