Duty descriptions

Rota: Prayers of intercession

Before the service

Prepare prayers. Resources which may help you are listed on the Resources page.

Others have found The intercessions handbook by John Pritchard to be a useful resource - available from Bookshop.UK. There is also a second volume available.

During the service

At the appropriate time come up to the lectern and deliver your prayers. Please see the note below if your prayers include congregational responses.

There is a movable step behind the lectern. If you are tall you may wish to move it out of the way.

Do not adjust the microphone and try to avoid touching it as you speak.

Speak at a reasonable volume - as though you were addressing a room full of people. Speak more slowly than you would face-to-face: the church has a considerable echo and rapid speech is hard to hear.

Prayers with responses

Here are some guidelines to help the congregation to know when to respond:

• Precede each response with the same call, for example: (Leader) Lord, in your mercy, (All) hear our prayer.
• If you know early in the week that you will be using responses, inform the Church Administrator so that call and response can be printed in the order of service.
• If you miss that deadline, inform the sound desk so that they can be shown on the screen.
• Introduce your prayers by saying something like When I say 'Lord, in your mercy' will you please respond with 'hear our prayer' and then rehearse it once by saying Lord, in your mercy, and join the people to respond hear our prayer.