What Is the Morning Prayer Service?
Traditionally, the Morning Prayer service has confession of sin, psalms, scripture readings, and prayers of thanks, supplication and intercession. In the form we will use here, it should last about 20 minutes. The schedule of readings comes from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer and the written prayers come from various sources. The service follows what Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer and involves seven distinct activities:
- approaching God in adoration and trust;
- acknowledging his work and his worth in praise and worship;
- admitting our sin and seeking his pardon;
- asking that our needs be met, for ourselves and others;
- arguing with God for blessing, wrestling with God as Jacob did in Genesis 32;
- accepting from God our situation as he has providentially shaped it;
- adhering to God through thick and thin.
These seven activities (described in Growing in Christ by J. I. Packer, 157) together constitute faithful biblical prayer.
For a fuller discussion of Daily/Morning Prayer, click here.
You can find a brief liturgy for an offering of prayer upon waking here.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings
be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions,
that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life,
godly and dignified in every way.
~1 Timothy 2:1–2
