Dear People of St. David’s,
Week by week, we worship together at St. David’s. A lot of what we do seems to be unchanging. We sing, we read scripture, we hear a sermon, we pray, we share bread and wine. It may even (perish the thought) seem a little boring to be doing the same thing week after week. Those same rituals, of course, are drenched in meaning. We sing our prayers and open our senses. We hear the scripture and work out the meaning of the Word of God as a community. We pray, not just to make ourselves better people, but to beg God to care for those whom we love and those whom we have never even met. That bread and wine that we share are no less than the real Presence of God among us.
We worship according to the Book of Common Prayer just like Episcopalians all over the world. That ritualized formula can become so familiar that we rely on it only to soothe us and forget that it is also designed to propel us to action. There are lots of ways to ensure that our worship both comforts and inspires us. Here at St. David’s there are many people, both professional and volunteer, who work hard to prepare for liturgy that does both things at the same time.
Consider one small group of your fellow parishioners: the prayer writers. This group of prayerful people write our weekly Prayers of the People. Notice, please, that important little preposition, of. These are not prayers for the people, prepared by someone above or beyond. This is decidedly not the ordained people praying for the lay folk. These are parishioners of all ages and genders and walks of life who are offering prayers on behalf of all of us for all of us—and for all the world. The prayers that we offer week by week are the prayers of all the people gathered—the clergy, administrative, and property staff, the choir and musicians, the lay assistants, the ushers and greeters, the Altar and Flower Guilds, and every worshipper in the pews and online.
Good liturgy requires preparation, and so our prayer book gives us a lot of help in preparing the Prayers of the People. There are seven different forms of prayers that may be used (pp. 328-330 and 383-393), and they vary widely from flowing Elizabethan English paragraphs to terse call and response phrases. Some prayers are intending to include long silences and others are more conversational. Here’s the thing: as long as we follow a short set of instructions in the prayer book, our prayers may be written in the language of our hearts, in whatever form we create.
“Prayer is offered with intercession for
The Universal Church, its members, and its mission
The Nation and all in authority
The welfare of the world
The concerns of the local community
Those who suffer and those in any trouble
The departed (with commemoration of a saint when appropriate)”
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 383).
Following those instructions, from their prayerful hearts and imaginations, a few of your fellow parishioners craft prayers on behalf of us for all of us and for all the world.
It’s a new school year, a new program year in church—a time to learn new skills and try new things. Are you feeling prayerful and imaginative? Contact me if you would like to try your hand and heart at crafting the Prayers of the People.
Feeling grateful to those who pray and write on your behalf? Offer a word of thanks to our prayer writers: Barbara Cassidy, Jonesy Lerch, Mac McCausland, Susan Nagy, John Oehler, MJ Ormsbee, Amanda Smoot, Ali Stahlwood, and Elliot VanHoy.
Faithfully,
Nancy+
The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud
Priest Associate
Published on September 3, 2026.