Pastoral prayers or congregational prayers – both are usually one-person praying.  One uplifting, encouraging practice we have found very helpful is to have prayer teams.  Two person teams will station themselves around the worship area, and attenders at the service are invited to approach a team with their personal requests. 

The teams are usually current or former elders and their spouse; we want to have people with biblical knowledge and some counseling and prayer experience.  Having a man and a woman on the team seems to provide a welcomed comfort level.

Those remaining in their seats are encouraged to pray. Sometimes small clusters will organize themselves for group prayer.   

We often find there is not enough time; there is a dynamic where it takes a while for the first few prayer seekers to stand up, but then there is a rush; sometimes we wish we had more teams.  So, we encourage people to seek out prayer from friends who are not in the teams.