Every year, the GT community steps away from our usual routine for a three-week Pause. During this time, we quiet our commentary in order to lean into the disciplines of Scripture study, prayer, and worship with greater intentionality. (Never experienced a Pause before? Check out 2023’s Pause here!)

This year, our Pause lands a bit before the craziness of the holidays, and if you’re anything like me, you’re already feeling the pressure. Sisters, as you contemplate setting aside a few minutes each day to experience the sacred tranquility of refreshing and refocusing,
can you feel a longing spark to life in your soul?

Does your soul feel weary?
Heavy-laden with obligations and schedules and to-do lists and regrets and tough choices and the plain old pain of life?
Do your aching shoulders and bruised heart long to shed their burdens and be gently wrapped in a tender cloak of healing?

Dear child, come to Me, our Father whispers, easing from our spirits a yoke of self-sufficiency we were never meant to carry. 
Come to Me, you who are weary and heavy-burdened. (Matthew 11:28-30)
Come to Me, you who are sick in body or soul. (Mark 2:17)
Come to Me, you who are so lost and entangled in your sin, you believe you might never be whole and free again. (Luke 19:10)

This year, our time of coming to Him will look a little different. We’ll still spend time in His Word daily, and in worship, however, our Pause will be guided by the tradition of praying through collects.

If, like me, you don’t have liturgical church experience, “collects” may be an unfamiliar concept. So here’s some background for us newbies! 

A collect is a short prayer focused on a specific topic. In The Book of Common Courage, Christian author KJ Ramsey defines a collect “as a brief form of prayer that distills our desires down to the most needful thing.” (p. 14)

In the Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer included many collects for corporate or individual prayer; while the topic of each collect is unique, every collect follows a similar structure. As theologian and pastor Tim Keller elucidated in his book on prayer, each collect is built around a 5 step framework:

1. Address: a name or characteristic of God
2. Doctrine: a truth about God’s nature, serving as the basis for prayer
3. Petition: what is requested of God
4. Aspiration: what good result will come if the request is granted
5. In Jesus’ name: a reminder Jesus is our mediator

Let’s apply this framework to a collect from the Book of Common Prayer, and watch the pieces fall into place!

A Collect for the Sick (p. 260)

1. Address: Heavenly Father,
2. Doctrine: giver of life and health,
3. Petition: comfort and relieve your sick servants, and give your power of healing to those who minister to their needs,
4. Aspiration: that those for whom our prayers are offered may be strengthened in their weakness and have confidence in your loving care,
5. In Jesus’ name: through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Ok, but whyyyy do I care??” you might be asking. Fair question!

Several years ago, I went through a very hard time. When I began to emerge, one unforeseen side effect was a newfound hesitance in prayer. 

The words I’d spent my life praying seemed trite, even hurtful or manipulative at times. In a time of interrogating nearly every aspect of faith outside of salvation through Jesus, how could I know what to pray when I wasn’t even sure what I believed?

Frustrated and exhausted, I ordered a Book of Common Prayer, and in its pages, I found a starting place for prayer in my new unfamiliar spiritual space. Much as He led His disciples through the first steps of prayer (Matthew 6:5-15), Jesus used the words of these beautiful prayers to reintroduce me to a life of prayer. He gave me a place to begin afresh.

And that brings us back to why we care about collects. 

We care, because when we’re not sure how to pray, they give us a starting place.
We care, because when we understand their structure, we can take the next step:
any one of us can write our own collects.

Any one of us can contemplate the “most needful thing” echoing in our hearts.
Any one of us can explore the beauty and cadence and depth of wrapping that most needful thing in language.
Any one of us can come to Him in prayer, full of confidence that in His presence, we will find mercy and grace to help us with that most needful thing. (Hebrews 4:16)

So for Pause 2024, Monday through Thursday, I’ll be sharing a collect I’ve written. We’ll pair it with related Scripture passages for reading, and songs for worship.

On Fridays, we invite you to write your own collect, based on a Scripture passage we provide, or whatever most needful thing is on your heart. We’d love for you to share your collects, to encourage one another with the ways God is working in our community!

For today, here’s another collect from the Book of Common Prayer, written to be prayed near the close of the year:

Proper 22 (p. 234)
“Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Until tomorrow, friends! We can’t wait to journey with you!