Formal Prayer Vs. Unscripted Prayer

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

When I was a newly minted Christian and a young adult, what seemed most obvious to me about my prayer life was the preference for an organic, improvised style of personal prayer at the expense of something formal and scripted. This meant a conversational style rather than reciting prayers from memory. I took this sentiment so seriously that I would adapt prayers that I knew I should be praying, like the Our Father, into a language that was more idiosyncratic to the way I speak. What was ironic about this is that in doing so, I was conceding a recognition that there are prayers that I ought to be saying because we are taught to, from Jesus himself, as well as Church tradition, but then I somehow missed the part where either scripture or Tradition tell us that unscripted and unrehearsed prayer should be prioritized at the expense of scripted and rehearsed prayers. Because it doesn’t teach that – which makes me wonder why I was so heavily influenced by this sentiment – and I’m willing to bet that many of you watching this video are as well. I also found that the longer I did this, the more I was running out of creative ways to make my prayers spontaneous and authentic. I inevitably found myself saying the same things every day to the point where I had created my own scripted and rehearsed regimen of prayer and if anything, the pressure to be creative and spontaneous became a discouragement to pray at all.

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