Ecclesiology 15 - A Practical Approach to Small Groups: Communal Prayer and Confession

     In a weekly one-hour small group meeting, roughly 20 minutes should be dedicated to guided individual prayer and meditation, another 10-15 minutes to Bible study (an explanation of the seeming brevity here will be forthcoming in another post) and approximately 5-10 for any business.  What happens for the remaining 15-20 minutes?  This is where koinonia comes in, and it should not be undervalued.  I can think of three ways to spend this time together, none of which I personally like, but which Scripture and prayer have convinced me are essential.

(1) Communal Prayer.  As I've said before, I really don't like communal prayer.  In my experience, communal prayer virtually always comes off as pompous or degrading.  Left to me, it would simply be eliminated from our spiritual lives.  It's not left to me, however, and the gospels and epistles make it abundantly clear that Jesus expects his church to not only pray, but to pray together.  So we include communal prayer in the expectation that the Holy Spirit will teach us the value of the practice.  A few words of caution, however:

    (a) We should not commit the communal prayer to a single orator.  I know that some people find "public" speaking to be embarrassing, but they should still be encouraged to participate in our communal prayer time.  When one person (the pastor) is given the responsibility for the church's communal prayer - which is exactly how it is handled in 95% of all worship services today - several things happen to our prayer time, all of them bad: (1) the congregation is no longer participating in the prayer, but listening to it; (2) the prayer leader comes under increasing pressure to present a "professional" prayer, virtually destroying the koinonia between God and servants; (3) bowing under the pressure of professionalism, the leader may often choose to read a pre-printed prayer written by a professional liturgist, turning prayer time into something more akin to a poetry recital.  Far better to conduct our communal prayer as a round-robin affair with everyone present being encouraged to speak a word or two aloud.  Within a few weeks, even the shiest group member will eventually build the trust needed to participate, and it seems to me that community is the whole point behind communal prayer.

    (b) Even within the round-robin nature of the communal prayer as just described, it is not uncommon for this or that participant to do a bit of grandstanding, praying for half the allotted prayer time and doing so as eloquently as his improvisational skills will allow in a misplaced attempt to prove himself the King of the Piety Hill.  This is to be discouraged.  In the first place, the grand-stander is not truly in the spirit of the exercise but is displaying that ever-present problem of pride.  Thus feeding his ego as he is, he does himself no good.  In the second place, he is doing no one else any good either, for everyone in the room knows what he is up to, they are all rightfully annoyed by it, and the koinonia this exercise is designed to create has now flown right out the nearest window.  At the beginning of the communal prayer session, the session leader should make it clear what we are to do, the reasons we are doing it, and that, while each person in the room is strongly encouraged to participate, each participant is to confine him/herself to one or two sentences.  Tact is the order of the day, of course, but the "no showboating" rule must be made clear and, if the problem persists, some sort of disciplinary action must be taken (the topic of a future post).

    (c) As an alternative to the round-robin prayer is the "prayer chair" approach made popular during the Lay Renewal Weekends of the 1970's.  In this method, a single chair is placed inside the circle created by the group.  Anyone who wishes prayer for any reason will silently occupy the center chair.  At this point, all the other participants - or as many as are so inclined - gather around said person and verbalize a prayer on his/her behalf.  This can be a very moving and effective experience for all those involved, but it is not without its inherent dangers: (1) there is the danger that the experience can become too emotional and insufficiently spiritual, and (2) people who have not yet rid themselves of pride can turn the experience into a competition, occupying the prayer chair not for the commitment of any issues to the Spirit, but to count how many people gather around them as opposed to the people praying for the other members of the group.  This is one reason why this post was preceded by a discussion of spiritual maturity.

(2) Confession.  I don't like this idea, either.  In fact, it scares the bejeepers out of me.  Confessing my sins to God (who, presumably, already knows them anyway) while alone in my closet is one thing, but to confess them aloud to other people (who may be shocked to discover how sordid I can sometimes be) is pretty scary.  And yet, from Mosaic Law through the prophets and the gospels, right on through the epistles we are told by implication or explication that we are to do just that.  Just for quick reference, I'll throw out James 5:16 as an explicit example: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

    There are, of course, precedents of public confession outside the church.  The most obvious example is the primary rule expressed in Alcoholics Anonymous that each attendant must begin a meeting by reciting the phrase "Hi.  My name is ____.  I am an alcoholic."  This public admission is seen as a critical first step in the recovery process.  It is, admittedly, not a particularly difficult admission to make for any given attendant; an addiction to alcohol is the whole reason for attending the meeting.  As such, everyone in the room already knows you're an alcoholic.  Otherwise, why would you be here?  The point is not that one is an alcoholic, but that the individual has come to see alcoholism as a problem and is ready to do something about it.  His/her fellow attendants, then, become the addict's support group, both literally and figuratively.

    And this, to my understanding, is the whole point behind public confession of any sort.  Privately confessing one's sins in prayer to God is excellent in that it forces one to remember that he is a sinner, but, in my experience, it does little to convince one of the need to stop sinning.  As embarrassing as the idea of public confession is, it can be (1) the means of bringing forth the guilt needed to overcome the particular temptation, (2) the catalyst for releasing said guilt, and (3) the realization that one need not "go it alone;" one can lean on the support of God, yes, but also a small group of committed allies in "battling the demon."

    Perhaps the confession and communal prayer can be incorporated together, somewhat like the Prayer Chair idea mentioned previously.  As the group goes round the circle, as this or that participant confesses a sin or temptation, the others can gather around that person and, laying hands upon him, pray over him.  Once we've gone all the way round the circle, we can follow up with a communal prayer in which we commit ourselves anew to mutual prayer, support, understanding and love.

    The only real caveat I can think of is a warning that the leading elder be ever vigilant to remind the group that all confessions are at the free will of the confessor and that any confession be kept in the strictest of confidences within the group.  Any discussion of confessions beyond the group, or any gossip generated within the group regarding the confession of a brother or sister must be dealt with immediately and by the strictest means available.

(3) Sharing. The idea of sharing is largely incorporated within the concepts of confession and communal prayer.  Of course, the group can share joys as well as concerns, and they should take every opportunity to do so.  To a great extent, the whole small group program is about sharing, and that is exactly as it should be.  If we are to separate sharing out from the other components of the meeting, it is unlikely we would need more that a "how's it been going this week?" to each member in turn to get the sharing process started.

    Next up - the large group worship program.  Till then,

Pax