Among many things for which I’m grateful, a deliberately acquired capacity for appreciating modes of worship different from what I grew up with ranks among the most valued. One event in particular from over thirty years ago is one of the most memorable.

It was a very different experience for me, quite unlike any corporate worship event I’d known before. In an urban sanctuary in Kansas City, a group of a few hundred had gathered for Lord’s Day services. After a period of singing, time was devoted to prayer. There was no one leading prayer, but it seemed that all were praying. Each person was praying out loud but in a low voice.

The prayers continued for several minutes. Gratefully, I didn’t check my watch, but it seemed to go on for fifteen or maybe twenty minutes. My wife, having experienced this beforehand had described it to me like the sound of a waterfall or of a mountain river. I couldn’t comprehend that… until that morning and my own encounter.

As I listened, I could sense a rhythm in the praying, an ebbing and flowing as it were. Slight increases and decreases in both the volume and pace of the praying. At first, I was a bit taken aback; it seemed so strange to me. But then, as I quieted my own spirit, I began to embrace it. It was like something living, as if the prayers had taken on some sort of surreal expression.

Maybe the smell of incense has a parallel in the sound of prayer like waters. May our prayers always be a pleasing aroma and a pleasing sound to our heavenly Father.