Prayer of Confession

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13

When anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned. Leviticus 5:5

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5

As a teacher, I’ve seen that there are different ways different schools go about their apologies. At my current position, this is our structure for apologies:

I’m sorry for ________. Next time I will ________. Do you accept my apology?

This is a really amazing way to teach apologizing- even if their body language doesn’t mean it. We are asking students to literally NAME what they did wrong. They have to recognize their actions had an impact on someone. Then they have to continue by sharing what they will do next time so they don’t hurt the person again in a similar situation. It has proven quite effective in classroom management; when you have to name what you did wrong in an apology and say what you’ll do next time- the apology has weight. It has meaning. And you are much less likely to want to do that again.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this… Every Sunday we say the Confession together. And we all know we sin, we’re taught that from a young age in the church. So we have no problems saying the prayer of confession. And it has all the parts- I’ve done these things and shouldn’t have (I’m sorry for…), asking for leadership and guidance (Next time I will…), and a request to be forgiven (do you accept my apology).

And then there is a moment of silence. I’ve heard people complain about the “moment of silence” being too long. It’s why when my dad pastored a small church the accompanist played music during the moment of “silence.”

That moment of silence, we are told, is for our own personal confessions. Yes, we already listed our sins earlier. The Confession prayer is usually very general- It applies to everyone, no matter what you did. But we didn’t truly NAME what we have done to hurt others (or ourselves). That silence is for us to reflect on our own actions. To actually tell God what we did against our significant other, parent, child, friend, neighbor… The moment of silence is to be filled with our own conversations with God. I challenge myself to name specific moments I knew I sinned over the past week during that time. Would you join me in that challenge?

Kylie Meter