Prayers for the People: Things We Didn't Know We Could Say to God

by Terry J. Stokes

Overview

A collection of timely, stirring, and witty prayers that give language to the full breadth of our everyday experiences—from joy to sorrow, and everything in between
 
“This is the prayer book I need right now, full of humor and beauty, candor and holy longing.”—Jeff Chu, co-curator of Evolving Faith and author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?

In his debut collection of short-form prayers (aka collects), Terry Stokes names many things we didn’t realize we could pray for, such as student loan debt cancellation, strength when we’re about to make small talk, and restraint when we have the opportunity to be petty. The collection features an impressive range of humor and inspiration, and spans lament and solidarity, including prayers for

• when one dreads the thought of returning to work on Monday
• when one has been left on read by a friend
• before shooting one’s shot
• after shooting one’s shot
• before walking into Target
• when one fears getting canceled
• those working in retail
• when one’s team is struggling

These tender, moving, and entertaining prayers invite us to access the wonder and joy of God’s presence in every situation we encounter. By putting words to the emotions and needs that lie beneath our petitions, our celebrations, and our protests. Stokes’s prayers make for an engaging and heartfelt read that will delight and encourage any person of faith in the modern age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593239438
Publisher:	The Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,006,098
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.78(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Terry J. Stokes is the associate pastor of youth and community engagement at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, in New Jersey. He weaves together his experience in several church contexts with his theological education, his knowledge of pop culture, and his devotional life to write prayers that encourage the heart of today’s church.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

I was raised in a church tradition in which the only way we prayed was extemporaneously. Any kind of prayer that was formal or pre-written—the handful of times that I would experience it at my grandma’s house or a friend’s church—struck me as rote, uninspired, and emotionally disengaged. If the words weren’t coming directly from where my heart and mind and soul were at in that moment, the prayer was a less authentic reflection of me, and therefore less effective—or even counterproductive—toward my goal of developing an authentic relationship between Jesus and the real me.

This was definitely the case at the evangelical megachurch of my youth, but it reached its peak at the charismatic-adjacent Black church of my college years. Every Sunday we would enter the sanctuary in need of inspiration, and boy would our worship pastor take us there. He began each service with five to ten minutes of passionate off-the-cuff prayer, music ebbing and flowing behind his emotional swells, to the point where any resistance melted away, hearts fired up, and everyone was spiritually locked in—ready to sing and dance the house down. I miss those days.

The summer after I graduated from college, I went to work as the worship intern at a Presbyterian church in Charlottesville, Virginia, as part of a one-year fellowship program. I can still viscerally remember the dread that I felt after my first Sunday there. I remember saying to myself, Worship should not be scripted like this! How can you know what you’re going to pray before the moment comes? Where’s the openness to the move of the Spirit? Where’s the room for spontaneity? I cannot do this for nine months—I already need a revival after one day! Alexa, play Kirk Franklin.

But before a couple of months had passed, God had changed my heart, showing me how formal liturgy can be a much-needed protection against the “tyranny of the novel.” I learned that worship does not have to be spontaneous, new, or unique in order to be faithful. There ’s immense beauty in our expressing ourselves to God out of the present state of our hearts and minds, but there ’s also power in the way God forms and shapes us through words that have been slowly and deliberately crafted by liturgists over the past week, or year, or generation, or even over the breadth of our traditions.

During my years at Princeton Seminary, I worked at a wonderful Episcopal parish on the Upper West Side of New York City (a fun Sunday morning commute), and later at St. Philip’s, a historically Black Episcopal parish in Harlem. As I spent those three years saying the same collect for purity, the Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and various other unchanging parts of the liturgy, I learned that common prayer can open the door to deeper levels of engagement and internalization. Like the lyrics of an old favorite song, the words take up residence deep down in our souls. Every recitation “above the surface” draws from memories and associations that shoot out like roots beneath our conscious thoughts and words. This creates a level of buy-in that for me has felt like being drawn tighter into God’s arms.

After I was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in early 2019, I started saying morning prayer daily at Trinity, the parish down the street from my apartment on campus. This meant that I was praying 1) with other people, 2) with roughly the same group of people each time, 3) at the same time five days a week, 4) in the same place. I would not have been able to unlock the solitude and silence of solitary evening prayer without having several months of the former under my belt first.

This also meant that, by the time I started doing evening prayer as well, I was doing a Psalm, Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel reading each day according to a lectionary; and that I had discrete space for adoration, for confession, for thanksgiving, and for supplication. Adding this liturgical structure to my daily devotions created a routine that worked for me unlike anything I’d tried previously in my life.

The balance and variety of genres of Scripture and idioms of prayer, as well as the centering of the liturgy on the Psalms—the prayer book of the Bible—clicked for me in a way that reading through one book at a time, using popular devotionals, and other approaches hadn’t. The fact that most of the liturgy followed repeated or rotating forms, and was more focused on participation than reflection, took the onus off of me to come up with the words or the feelings that would make my devotion “good” on any particular day (e.g., I did morning prayer today and thereby offered my faithful attention and service to God versus I had a good quiet time this morning because I extracted this insight or felt that emotion).

This was also my introduction to the kind of prayer called a “collect” (KA-lict, emphasis on the first syllable). A collect is a short written prayer that gathers up (or collects) similar prayer concerns, and articulates them in a broad, general way. Put differently, it crystallizes or condenses a variety of similar ideas into one prayer that, by virtue of its form and place in the prayer book, is something that an entire communion can lift up together. The Book of Common Prayer has collects for each week of the liturgical year, for various saints’ days and other holy days, and, in the back, ones for various people, topics, or events (e.g., for monastics, for the right use of God’s creation).

Later that year, I saw someone tweet out “a collect for when chips must be eaten quietly,” formatted in the font and style of the Book of Common Prayer, which delighted me to no end. Combining a traditional form with contemporary experience through the rhetorical lens of humor? Genius! It was also the first time I considered that an average person could write their own collects, and even share them with others who might find them worth saving and using. The seed was planted.

A few months later, I had the opportunity to write my first collect for my parish’s first celebration of the feast of the Reverend Peter Williams, our first rector and the second Black man ordained in the Episcopal Church. I enjoyed the experience of a new kind of writing, a new way of praying, and the way in which a private spiritual exercise could then be of service to others in a more public setting.

A few weeks after that I went on a first date, and, as I often do, I was getting way into my feelings way too quickly (e.g., planning my dance feature for the wedding reception, naming the kids, designing the house, etc.). But in an effort to grow as a person, I was determined to channel the energy in a more productive way this time.

So I decided to write a collect “for when one is enamored but must be chill about it” (see page 21).
As playful as it was, the collect was genuinely efficacious in many respects: it helped me invite God into my romantic life, and allowed me to channel my thoughts into productive acknowledgments and requests to God, rather than letting them run wild.

I texted the collect to a few friends, mainly just as a humorous peek into my life. Turns out, they all thoroughly enjoyed it, so I tweeted it, and folks enjoyed it there as well. Incentivized by the personal benefits and public interest, I decided to write one collect per day for the foreseeable future.

So began a solid stretch of several months where I would post my work daily: prayers for when one is getting trolled on the internet, for when one has been ghosted, for before opening a dating app, and so on. The project became a wonderful way to combine contemporary concerns with traditional language and form, and to bring into my ongoing conversation with God various parts of my life that had not previously been represented there. The response from Christian Twitter quickly grew beyond anything I’d imagined—it was almost as if folks were waiting for this kind of project to be put out into the world.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/20/2021

Stokes, a New Jersey youth pastor, debuts with an insightful compendium of more than 200 short original prayers that challenges the assumption that worship has to “be spontaneous, new, or unique in order to be faithful.” Occasions for the prayers range from somber (“For bereaved mothers”) to celebratory (“For after getting the job or offer”), and they often speak to modern concerns, including pleas for ecumenical unity among Star Wars fans and prayers “for when one has accidentally liked their crush’s old photo.” Yet Stokes’s most stirring entries are those which draw on the biblical injunction to do good, seek justice, and correct oppression, or those which address contentious contemporary topics—such as sexual identity (“For those experiencing gender dysphoria”) or economic inequality (“For economic justice”): “O Christ, who fills the hungry with good things and sends the / rich away empty, melt down and reshape our economy.” It is a mark of Stokes’s wisdom and empathy that prayers of excoriation and lamentation come across as more conciliatory than sermonic. Wonderfully blending traditional prayer rhetoric with humor and an eye for contemporary concerns, Stokes’s work will be a stimulating, inspiring resource particularly for those working in youth ministry. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

What a gift Terry Stokes has given us. Like the best of the ancient psalms, these modern collects don’t shy from reality and express trust in a loving God who cares intimately about our everyday lives. This is the prayer book I need right now, full of humor and beauty, candor and holy longing.”—Jeff Chu, co-curator of Evolving Faith and author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?
 
“From the petty to the profound, Terry Stokes’s Prayers for the People gives us the language and courage we need to go boldly before the throne of God in prayer, asking for what we desire and need. The scope of prayers within this book will bless the prayer warrior and the prayer adverse.”—Ekemini Uwan, public theologian and co-host of the podcast Truth’s Table

“Wonderfully blending traditional prayer rhetoric with humor and an eye for contemporary concerns, Stokes’s work [is] a stimulating, inspiring resource.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher