Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

The prayers of the Pietist fellowship meetings were popular, intense, and spontaneous. Emphasizing Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, every member of the fellowship was encouraged to voice his or her own prayer concerns. The Puritan idea of conceived prayer was replaced by an emphasis on spontaneous prayer. It was the spontaneous prayer of the heart that was clearly sincere. Those who were really filled with the Holy Spirit did not have to prepare prayers. Unlike the Puritans, the Pietists saw no need for studying the Scriptures to learn what they were to pray about or to seek guidance in developing prayer disciplines. A formal ministry of intercession drawn from the teachings of Scripture interested them no more than reading the set prayers of the official liturgy. The Puritan insight that prayer was part of the prophetic dimension of the gospel ministry faded before the concern that every member of the fellowship should have a chance to participate. Psalm prayer tended to lose its place in Protestant worship, and with it the sense of awe and majesty of the experience. But if Pietism lost some of these important aspects of prayer, it did bring an intimacy and a fervor that democratized the prayer life of Protestantism.