The sequential interfaith service
Each tradition prays in turn, in its own words, rather than everyone praying one blended prayer.
The commonest format. Leaders from several traditions offer prayers, readings, or chants one at a time, each in its own idiom, often with a sentence of context before each contribution. Listeners are welcome but not expected to join. The Assisi gatherings set the pattern: separate prayers, shared presence, and no attempt to merge them into one liturgy.
The sequential form gives each tradition present its own slot. A rabbi prays as a rabbi, an imam as an imam, and nobody is asked to say words belonging to someone else's faith.
It is the form most interfaith bodies recommend, and the reasoning is practical rather than diplomatic. A blended prayer written to offend nobody usually ends up meaning very little, and it can also place a participant in the position of appearing to affirm something they do not believe.
The cost is length, and the running order matters more than organisers expect: who goes first and who closes are read as statements about precedence whether or not they were meant that way.
Does it have a text?
There is no interfaith text, and the whole point of this form is that there is not one. Each participant uses their own tradition's words, which is where the texts live.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Interfaith
- Shared silence — A held silence that everyone present can fill in their own way.
- Civic invocation — A prayer opening a public or governmental occasion, addressed to a mixed audience.
- Prayer in a multi-faith room — A single space used by several traditions, usually in a hospital, airport or university.
- Community vigil — A gathering after a death or disaster, usually mixed and usually outdoors.
- Being present at another tradition's prayer — Attending prayer that is not your own, at a funeral, a wedding or a bedside.
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.