Charismatic and Pentecostal prayer
Prayer expecting the immediate activity of the Spirit, including prayer in tongues.
Expressive prayer centered on the Holy Spirit, marked by lifted hands, praying aloud together, expectant prayer for divine healing, and in many congregations praying in tongues, understood as a prayer language given by the Spirit and linked to baptism in the Holy Spirit. It can be exuberant in corporate worship and quiet in private devotion.
Charismatic and Pentecostal prayer expects God to act now and visibly. It includes praying in tongues, prayer for healing with laying on of hands, and prophetic speech addressed to individuals or to the gathering.
It is frequently loud and frequently simultaneous, with a whole room praying aloud at once, which is disorienting to visitors from quieter traditions and is not disorder to those present.
This is the fastest-growing form of Christianity globally, and a chaplain or a nurse is more likely to meet it at a bedside than the statistics of older denominations would suggest.
Does it have a text?
No text at all, and strongly so: the tradition's characteristic claim is that the words are given rather than prepared. Prayer in tongues is by definition not a text in any language a page could print.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Protestant
- Extemporaneous prayer — Prayer composed in the moment, in the speaker's own words.
- Liturgical prayer and the Daily Office — Set prayers and set hours, kept by the traditions that retained them.
- The pastoral prayer — The long prayer offered on behalf of a whole congregation during worship.
- The prayer meeting — A gathering whose only business is praying together, usually mid-week.
- Grace at meals and household devotion — Prayer at the table, and the habit of family prayer at home.
This page describes a practice. It does not tell you how to perform it, or whether you should. Practice varies by region, community and household far more than a page like this can carry, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed anything here. The full dossier names its sources.