The Dreaded “Praying Aloud”

There are many women, including “retreat rookies” who have a fear of praying aloud.  These women may have a very sweet relationship with the Lord, but for whatever reason are reluctant to pray aloud in front of others.  If we think back to our early days as a Christian, probably all of us understand their hesitation.  Ladies may even shy away from participating in women’s events for fear they will be called upon to pray aloud.  Their fear may result from their lack of opportunity to hear other women praying aloud, a concern that they will misspeak or even pray something that is not Biblical, or simply a reluctance to open up to others in prayer.  They may be intimidated by the flowery, spiritual language used by others in prayer.  This anxiety normally lessens as more time is spent praying with other women, but it can be a very real fear.

We need to be sensitive to this issue faced by some of our women.  Try not to put anyone on the spot.  If you like to divide your women into groups to pray at retreats or other events, we would suggest that you always make sure that the prayer groups have at least three women.  Make sure that you know that at least one woman in the group is comfortable praying aloud, and designate her as the “leader” of the group.  Then, announce that if a woman does not feel comfortable praying aloud, all she needs to do is let her group leader know, and she will be covered by the others in her group.