Trueman on Public Prayer

The below quote from Carl Trueman (and the following link to the full article) discusses the dying art of pulpit prayer. I think he's dead on regarding the erosion between the public and the private in this strange new Twitter/Facebook culture we find ourselves in. Trueman is the sort of writer I love to read even when I disagree with him.  Notice that his concern is at its root Pastoral, not persnickety.

"To listen to a lot of public prayer in churches is too often like listening in to a private quiet time -- and that is not meant as a compliment. The erosion of the boundary between public and private and the relentless march of the aesthetics of casualness have taken their toll here. It seems that unless somebody prays in public precisely as we think they might do in private, we all fear that this might be a form of affectation which prevents the prayer from being `authentic' -- whatever that might mean. Yet often there are people in the congregation on Sunday who have come from a week of pain, worry and confusion; they may be spiritually shattered; they might barely be able to string two words of a prayer together; and at this moment a good pastor can through a well-thought out and carefully expressed prayer draw their eyes heavenwards, lead them to the throne of grace and give them the words of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and intercession which they cannot find for themselves."

Another Thing We Do Badly (Carl Trueman)