Set and free prayer
The long argument between prayer that is written down and prayer that is not.
Two delivery modes cut across all the forms above. Set prayer uses composed texts: the Lord's Prayer, psalms, collects in service books. Free prayer is unscripted and conversational. Liturgical churches build worship from the first, evangelical and Pentecostal churches from the second, and each tradition regards its own practice as fully sincere.
Christianity has argued about this for five centuries. Set prayer uses words written in advance, often centuries in advance; free prayer uses whatever the person praying comes up with.
The case for set prayer is that it does not depend on how a person feels, that it carries a whole tradition's language into a moment when the individual has none, and that it can be said by a congregation together. The case for free prayer is that it is the person's own, and that prescribed words can become something a person says without meaning.
Most traditions use both and are simply weighted differently, and many individuals move between them depending on the day and the difficulty.
Does it have a text?
This is a distinction rather than a practice, so it has no text of its own. It is the reason this site holds the texts it does: set prayers can be published with an edition named, and free prayer cannot be published at all.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Christian
- Praise and adoration — Prayer that addresses God for who God is rather than asking for anything.
- Confession — Naming what has gone wrong, privately or in a congregation.
- Thanksgiving — Prayer that names what has been received.
- Petition — Asking for oneself.
- Intercession — Asking on behalf of someone else.
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.