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Spontaneous, unplanned prayer is a good thing. The Bible contains many examples of such prayers (e.g., Neh 2:4). In fact, praying doesn’t even require the use of intelligible words (Rom 8:26; 1 Cor 14:2). Nonetheless, using a prayer book with written, scripted prayers can be a great way to deepen one’s devotional practice.
In this article, we’ll seek to answer:
What is a prayer book?
A prayer book is a handbook for your devotional life.
A prayer book is more than a collection of random prayers—though you will typically find prayers for a variety of occasions in a prayer book. Rather, a prayer book is usually a whole system of prayer, either for the devotional life of a community or individual person.
At the heart of these devotional systems is the daily reading of Scripture, often following an annual cycle tied to the ancient church calendar.
Why use a prayer book?
The Bible gives us plenty of examples of planned, scripted prayer, which is what you’ll find in a prayer book. The Psalter is the most obvious example, but there are others as well, like Deuteronomy 27:14–15. Or consider when Jesus’s disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he didn’t just give them general guidelines. He gave them words to pray, words we still use today (the Lord’s Prayer).
There’s great value in scripted prayers, like the Lord’s Prayer and others found in prayer books. For instance,
- Through repeated use, the words of prayer books become inscribed in our memories. From there they can reshape our character to make it more like Christ’s.
- These prayers connect us to Christians across the world and across time, showing us the unity of Christ’s body, the church.
- Prayer books guide us to pray for things we ought to pray for but might otherwise forget or prefer to ignore (such as praying for our enemies).
And far from being the enemy of spontaneous prayer, prayer books enhance our unplanned prayers. They teach us sturdy patterns and words that have served countless Christians before us.
What types of prayer books are available?
Many different prayer books are available, each designed with different aims, audiences, and emphases in mind.
The example par excellence is the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. It contains within its two covers the instructions and script for all the services a church typically offers:
- A daily Bible reading plan
- Daily morning and evening prayer, which provides the framework for the daily Bible reading
- A Communion service
- A baptismal service
- A confirmation service
- A wedding service
- A service for visiting the sick
- Ordination services
- A catechism (that is, an introduction to the faith for children in Q&A format)
- And more
Some prayer books are more narrow in scope, like the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Catholic Church; or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s For All the Saints: A Prayer Book for and by the Church, which includes seven prayer services per day. The United Methodist Book of Worship is another example of a prayer book.
What to look for when selecting a prayer book
If you haven’t already decided what prayer book to use, first spend some time evaluating your options. Namely, look for a prayer book that is theologically sound, user-friendly, and uses language robust enough to bear the weight of daily use.
1. Theologically sound
To evaluate the theology of any particular prayer book, you may wish to first find out if the church you belong to has an official prayer book of its own. If not, consider asking a trusted pastor or spiritual advisor.
2. User-friendly
Beyond its faithfulness to the gospel, you will also want a prayer book that isn’t too complicated to use.
If you’re able to look through the book before making a decision, glance through the instructions in the book. Are they comprehensible? Do they expect you to know things you don’t know? How many choices does it present you in a daily prayer service? More choices usually mean more opportunities for confusion; fewer choices make a prayer book easier to use.
3. Enduring language
Finally, consider the language of the book. Ideally, you’ll be praying these words for years, so you want language that can hold up over a lifetime and that you won’t outgrow. Your best advice is look for the prayer books that have been in continuous use for a long time by other Christians or whole communities of Christians.
If you’re looking for a specific recommendation, I’d go with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition—it’s crystal-clear on the gospel, the language is the gold-standard for English liturgies, and it is the most user-friendly prayer book available (but I’m definitely biased, since I’m one of its editors!).
Practical guidance for using a prayer book
Let’s say that you’ve got a prayer book now and you want to begin using it for your daily devotions at home either with your family or just by yourself. But where do you get started? If you don’t belong to a church that uses an official prayer book, or didn’t grow up in a family that used one, then diving in for the first time can be a little daunting.
Allow me to guide you on what you can do to prepare.
1. Identify instructional material
Prayer books include both scripted prayers and instructions. Instructions are visually marked in some way—they could be in italics or red ink or have a pilcrow (¶) next to them, or something else to make it easy for you to spot them.
Before starting, read through the instructions first so you know what to expect. Having instructions for prayer may seem awkward at first, but soon they’ll feel like second nature.
2. Keep your Bible on hand
A prayer service (sometimes called an office or hour) often includes readings from the Bible that you may need to look up.
Pick a suitable Bible to use in your daily devotions ahead of time. Before you begin praying, look up and bookmark any passages you’ll need. Bookmarking the passages ahead of time will help you to stay focused on just praying once you begin.
3. Select among options
Sometimes the book will present you with options. So you may have to choose one out of several prayers that address the same concern or choose between a shorter or longer form of the service that you are doing.
Decide ahead of time what you will do. Don’t worry about making the “wrong” choice. All of the options will offer something valuable—otherwise they wouldn’t be there! Just as with bookmarking the Bible passages, choosing among options ahead of time will help you to stay focused on praying once you begin.
4. Have a personal prayer list
Prayer services sometimes have a space for personalized intercessions or intentions. If you read the instructions ahead of time, you’ll know just where this occurs.
Have your list of intercessions—of all those who have asked you to pray for them—ready and at hand so that you can easily read out these names or concerns when that part of the service comes. You may wish to keep your list in your prayer book at that very spot. That way, it will always be ready for you when you need it.
Use Logos’s Prayer List tool, on desktop or mobile, to track and organize your prayer requests.
5. Find an ideal location
As a final step of preparation, decide on a quiet space with a place to sit, room to kneel, and a surface (table, desk, or even a pillow) on which to set your prayer book. As much as possible, keep distractions out of reach and out of sight in this space. Don’t bring your cell phone with you.
Having a little space that you only use for prayer is ideal. Over time, your mind will associate that space with praying so that when you go there you will, without any conscious effort, begin to focus on prayer.
6. Prepare yourself
While you pray, above all humble your heart. In the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9–14), Jesus teaches that pride and self-righteousness are the antithesis of true prayer. This message resounds throughout all of Scripture:
- “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps 51:17 KVJ).
- “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word” (Isa 66:2 BSB).
- “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (Jas 4:6 KJV).
Self-satisfaction will sometimes sneak up on you while you kneel praying; when you notice it, ask God to root it out of you. Because it runs so contrary to our fallen nature, a good prayer book will often have you praying for the grace of humility.
7. Pray out loud
Whether you are praying with another person or in a group or completely alone, pray aloud.
If you are praying alone, this may seem weird at first. Yes, God can hear your silent thoughts, but praying aloud has benefits:
- Have you ever been reading silently and suddenly realized you’ve read a whole page with your eyes but not your mind? Reading out loud minimizes mindless reading; it helps keep your mind from wandering.
- Voicing the words you are praying drives them deeper into the soil of your soul. Like seeds, they will sprout and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23).
8. Include responsive sections
Oftentimes prayer books include responsive sections. These are places where the leader says one thing and the assembly responds with another. These responsive sections are often pulled from the Psalms or the Prophets, which is to say, ancient Hebrew poetry inspired by the Lord.
When you are praying alone, read both parts aloud. This is important because responsive sections are designed so that all participants hear both parts even if they aren’t speaking both. Dropping either the leader’s lines or the responses would mean dropping part of the content of the service.
9. Involve your body
Pray with your body as well as your voice.
Sometimes a prayer book will include instructions about when to kneel and stand. If you are able, follow these instructions. They reinforce the meaning of the words you are praying, helping you to pray more fully and sincerely.
Even if there are no such instructions in your prayer book, allow the postures and gestures of your body to echo the content of the words you speak. Standing up, bowing down, kneeling, folding our hands or lifting them up—all of these not only express our interior attitudes, but they can also shape our attitudes, as well. The humble posture of kneeling, for example, can make us feel more humble. Standing to say the creed not only expresses our confidence, but it helps us feel more confident. Between body and mind there is a two-way street.
2 mistakes to avoid when using a prayer book
Finally, there are two things you should avoid.
1. Fretting mistakes
Do not worry about messing it up. There’s always a learning curve, so you will make mistakes.
You might not even know they are mistakes until months later when you’ve gotten more used to praying with a prayer book. That’s okay! Mistakes do not invalidate your prayers, but perfectionism and pride may keep you from praying at all.
2. Unrealistic expectations
Don’t expect instant gratification.
Some people are drawn to prayer books because they are seeking a certain kind of spiritual experience. If they don’t feel it, they stop praying. That’s not how the discipline of prayer works.
You won’t always feel something and that’s okay. The Spirit blows where it wishes and its course cannot be seen (John 3:8). Sometimes profoundly satisfying or fulfilling feelings will pour over you, but they cannot be expected or demanded—that’s pride.
Know that you will make mistakes, stay humble, and keep praying.
Stick with it!
Not everything transformative is explosive. Prayer books aren’t bombs, they’re plants.
To make the most of a prayer book, you’ve got to make using it a habit. To make it a habit, set aside the time for it in your schedule. Don’t try to remember to squeeze it in wherever you can. You’ll find it easier to stick with it if you keep to the same (or nearly the same) time every day. You’ll know when it is a habit when you no longer decide to do it, you just do it—like brushing your teeth.
Try to protect that time in your daily schedule, but if there are days when you don’t have as much time as usual, just do a little. Anything worth doing is also worth doing poorly—brushing your teeth for thirty seconds is better than not at all. Don’t berate yourself over that or, worse still, give up on your prayer book.
Prayer books are designed for the long haul. If you stick with it, it will help to grow your faith into a tree so great that the birds of the air can nest in its branches (Luke 13:18–19).
Recommended resources from Keane
- Inwardly Digest: The Prayer Book as Guide to a Spiritual Life by Derek Olsen
Related articles
- What Is Prayer? Ways to Pray, Example Prayers & More
- It’s Not Magic: Understanding the Power & Pattern of Prayer
- How Our Prayers Reveal Our Theology
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