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You鈥檝e probably heard that we should take all of ourselves to God in prayer. But does God really care about doing laundry, aging rapidly, fighting traffic, or spending time with friends? God does care, according to W. David O. Taylor. His Prayers for the Pilgrimage: A Book of Collects for All of Life offers prayers about mundane sorrows and joys.
W. David O. Taylor teaches theology and worship at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is also an ordained Anglican priest and resident clergy at in Austin, Tex. His most recent books are (Baker Academic, 2023) and (IVP, 2024). In this edited conversation, he discusses how the collect (caw-lect) prayer form helps us meet God in our life circumstances.
The one thing common to liturgies and collects is that both are forms of prayer. Both fundamentally aim at helping Christians to pray. Two things, however, distinguish a collect. The first is its form; the second is its length.
First, unlike a collect, a liturgy involves a range of forms. We can find good examples in Douglas McKelvey鈥檚 series, Kayla Craig鈥檚 , or Cole Arthur Riley鈥檚 . A collect, however, hews to a strict form (which I talk about below).
The second thing that distinguishes a collect is its length. While covering a good deal of theological ground, the peculiar genius of a collect is its economy. It鈥檚 a blessedly short prayer that typically asks for one thing only. In a few places in Prayers for the Pilgrimage, I break the form to include a handful of Celtic prayers and prayers for children. Both types aim to be memorable by being musical to the ear.
It鈥檚 a blessedly short prayer that typically asks for one thing only.
In my first years at Fuller Seminary, I taught a course titled 鈥淭he Practices of 色中色.鈥 In it, I introduced my students to the collect and gave them an opportunity to write a collect a week throughout the whole term. The vast majority of my students come from nondenominational backgrounds, so they were largely unfamiliar with the collect form. Still, they quickly took to it and even began using it in their own ministries.
As I explained to my students then and again in the appendix to Prayers for the Pilgrimage, the collect typically involves a four- or five-fold structure. I chose to go with the latter:
Begin by naming God.
Remember God鈥檚 activities or attributes.
Express your request of God.
State your desired hope for such a request.
End by naming God again.
As I mention in the introduction to Prayers for the Pilgrimage, the collect is most fundamentally鈥痑 commemorative prayer.鈥疊y this I mean that the collect intends to bring to mind what God has done in the past and invites us to remember who God will continue to be in the present in the prayers that we pray. Hence the 鈥淵ou who鈥 pattern of this particular form of prayer.
Doing this well, of course, requires that we immerse ourselves in the stories and details of the Bible. By invoking the name of God in light of a particular activity of God that we witness in Scripture, we protect ourselves from abstract or idiosyncratic ideas of divine justice, for example, or divine love. Instead, we root such ideas in the concrete expression of how the Holy Trinity does justice, love, and the rest.
No. One of the best parts of the collect, I find, is that,鈥痺hile prescriptive in form, it lends itself easily to extemporaneous expression. There is no circumstance in life where this prayer cannot become immediately useful.
Anybody, in the end, can write and benefit from a collect: individuals, small groups, church staff, community leaders, teachers, coaches, even children if they鈥檙e given a chance. All that鈥檚 needed is to learn the basic form, to become familiar with the landscape and language of scripture, and to imagine circumstances or needs that are relevant to your life situation.
I鈥檝e not yet received a grant to research church history鈥檚 use of the collect; I鈥檝e simply acquired a stack of books that have helped me get a sense of the collect鈥檚 origin and use in both corporate worship and private prayer. The bulk of collects that show up in the derive chiefly from the that contained prayers used by the primary celebrant of eucharistic worship. The three most famous are attributed to (d. 461), (d. 496), and (d. 604), all of which governed the peculiar worship of the church at Rome.
I started writing and sharing collects when the COVID-19 pandemic began. While I鈥檝e not had a 
chance to systematically study their effect on people, I鈥檝e received a number of encouraging notes over the years. I had a colleague at Fuller buy several copies of Prayers for the Pilgrimage for students graduating from the Marriage and Family Therapy master鈥檚 program at Fuller. All had experienced varying degrees of anxiety about their future. My colleague particularly appreciated the prayers that gave honest voice to our emotions in the face of things that cause us to fear or to become overwhelmed.
A friend at church told me that she鈥檇 given a copy of the book to her mother, who had Alzheimer鈥檚. Although her mother couldn鈥檛 remember much, she found the musicality and simplicity of language comforting. She also, it seemed, enjoyed looking at the paintings that my wife, , had created for each section of the book. The images communicated to her as much as the words did.
I have friends in Guatemala who, under other circumstances, might have rejected the 鈥淐atholic鈥 feel to these prayers. But they fully embraced the collects鈥 biblical richness and wrote their own in Spanish. Strangers on social media have told me how much they appreciated the prayers that I wrote during the troubled year of 2020. Collects such as 鈥淎gainst the Pestilence that Stalks in the Dark,鈥 鈥淔or Dashed Plans,鈥 鈥淔or Grocers Managing Panic-Buying Shoppers,鈥 and 鈥淔or Untimely Deaths鈥 can expand our awareness of God鈥檚 interest in our daily lives.
I鈥檝e had teachers at Christian schools use my 鈥淏ack to School鈥 prayers in class, cancer patients take advantage of my prayers 鈥淔or Sickness and Healing,鈥 families moving across the country read my prayer 鈥淔or Journeying to a New Home鈥 in the car, therapists use my prayer 鈥淔or Those Who Struggle with Mental Health,鈥 and pastors pray my 鈥淧rayers for a Violent World鈥 from the pulpit.
I do. I actually wrote all of my children鈥檚 prayers in conversation with my daughter, Blythe, now 13, and my son, Sebastian, now 7. In the early weeks of the pandemic, Blythe struggled with anxiety, so I sat down with her to write my prayer 鈥淔or Anxious Children at Bedtime.鈥 My friend Paul Zach then that children could learn easily. Months later, I met a man who told me that his elementary-aged girls had memorized the song and sung it every night before bed.
I recommend simplifying sentences and, where possible, using rhyme. I did that in my Children鈥檚 Prayers and Celtic Prayers sections. I鈥檝e purposely written my children鈥檚 prayers in rhyme so that they could learn them without much trouble. I think this principle holds true for people whose mother tongue isn鈥檛 English. One of my goals with Prayers for the Pilgrimage, in fact, was to retain the musicality of phrasing that characterizes the Book of Common Prayer, which owes a great deal to the translating work of Thomas Cranmer. Its musicality makes it easier to remember than prose-heavy prayers, I find.
I also give readers permission to rework my prayers in a way that suits their own contexts and purposes. I鈥檓 not too territorial about my prayers. I simply wish for them to help people to present their petitions to God with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength.
I have more than a dozen favorites:
鈥淔or a Miserably Hot Day鈥 (which we have a lot of in Texas)
鈥淔or Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed鈥 (which happens to the best of us)
鈥淔or a Mid-Life Crisis鈥 (which also happens to the best of us)
鈥淔or Being Stressed Out鈥 (which often happens at the most inopportune time)
鈥淔or Knowing When to Say No to One More Thing That You Want to Do, Because It Will Probably Be Bad for Your Mental, Physical and Relational Health to Do It鈥 (which happens to me far more often than I wish to admit)
鈥淔or Changing a Diaper at Night鈥 (which I wrote for all parents on Planet Earth)
鈥淭o Be Said after Reading Bad News鈥 (which appears to be much needed these days)
鈥淔or Grace Between Fellow Believers Across Political Lines鈥 (ditto)
鈥淔or Those Who Do Not Feel at Home in Their Own Family鈥 (ditto again)
鈥淔or Loving Your Neighbor When You Don鈥檛 Feel Like Loving Them鈥 (ditto again and again)
鈥淔or Those Who Weary of Doing Justice鈥 (which I wrote on behalf of dear friends at my church)
鈥淔or Being 100% Honest with God鈥 (which is easier said than done)
鈥淔or Being a Hot Mess Before God鈥 (which I approve of 100%)
鈥淔or Green Spaces鈥 (which are always a gift)
鈥淔or Monday to Sunday,鈥 鈥淔or Birth to Death,鈥 and 鈥淔or the Twelve Days of Christmas鈥
鈥淔or St. Nicholas Day鈥 (which is such a fun day in our home!)
鈥&苍产蝉辫;
Read , by W. David O. Taylor. Listen to Taylor鈥檚 prayer 鈥,鈥 set to music by . Read 鈥,鈥 which he prays before teaching at Fuller Seminary. Browse art by .
