How to lead Listen Pray Care in church on Sunday
Integrating Listen, Pray, Care into worship gatherings might be easier than you think.
Out of the many types of gatherings in which we Listen Pray Care, the Sunday church setting is the most challenging. How can we address seating restrictions? What about the larger numbers of people?
In addition to showing you how to lead Listen Pray Care in church, our video will reveal its many more practical concerns. Watch this video to find out how Listen Pray Care group time can actually work extremely well during the Sunday service.
Here are some of the responsibilities on your plate as the leader:
1. Deal with the fixed seating.
2. Be sensitive to guests and visitors.
3. Be ready to answer questions.
4. Provide gentle direction and leadership.
5. Consider ways to prepare a portion of your large gathering beforehand.
6. Prepare your worship team to assist during the Listen Pray Care time.
7. Picture leading the service in your mind. Then do it.
These 7 items may sound self-explanatory. They are, but they are incredibly important. Take it from me! I provide more detail in the video--including a talk-through of the service and examples of how to say the prayers.
For your reference, here is a written version of leading Listen Pray Care right before the General Prayers (discussed in the video and in my book):
Everything is ready. I have placed Listen Pray Care group time right before the general prayers which naturally follow the LPC group time. I have trained my ushers. I have also arranged for my musician to play when the LPC time has reached the end.
When the time comes, I start by introducing the LPC Group time by saying,
We are committed to love one another as Christ has commanded his Church. To make the most of this opportunity, we now form Listen Pray Care groups of two or three people. Please turn now and select your group of two or three from the people around you.
After the groups are formed which doesn’t take long…I continue:
L: Choose a person in your group to share something they are thankful for or something they need to entrust to God. When they finish, the person to their left will pray and then be the next to share. If for some reason you are unable to pray, simply say, “Pass”, and others can pray.
I’m giving you about 10 minutes or so. You’ll hear the music start, signaling that we are about to end our Listen Pray Care group time, and you may wish to finish with a short prayer at that time.
I use a closing prayer that naturally transitions right into the general prayers.
The ending music plays, the sounds of people go down, and then I say something like this:
L: This concludes our Listen Pray Care time. (If people are still deep in prayer I may give it a few more seconds and then repeat.)
Please pray with me.
Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the amazing love you have shown us through your Son, Jesus Christ. Grant that the love we have shown one another, may reflect your love to those around us, that the world may see your love and turn to you in trust and hope.
You can continue here with other prayer requests, the Lord’s Prayer, or however you typically do your prayers. Or you can simply conclude with something brief, such as:
…We thank you for hearing our prayers. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Go for it! Watch the video (above). I talk through leading a service. You will find copies of the prayers I use, in the book Listen Pray Care in our bookstore.