64 – Chain of Compassion
A weekly blog of Creative Ideas for Leading Worship
Chain of Compassion
Linked Up Intercessions
Intercessory prayer is usually spoken or silent. We speak names aloud, or hold them silently, and trust that God receives what we offer.
The Chain of Compassion is a simple, tactile way of making prayer visible – a reminder that our concern for others is not isolated, abstract, or private, but shared, connected, and communal.
Try this activity in your usual Prayers of Intercession slot in the service, when the congregation is thinking both inwardly of themselves and outwardly of others and the wider world.
The activity
Give each person two or three narrow strips of paper (about 30cm long) and a pen. Invite them to write on the strips names or brief needs – a person or people they are praying for, locally or globally. The prayers might be for those who are sick, grieving, anxious, displaced, or simply struggling, or for a social issue or global concern. Encourage people to keep it short. One name or concern per strip. Few words. No explanations needed.
As music plays quietly, or in reflective silence, people bring their strips forward and link them together – loop by loop – forming a growing paper chain. Use staplers, tape or glue sticks to make this quick and accessible. When everyone has added their links, drape the chain along the front of the church, or lay it across the front of the communion table or altar.
The visual impact matters. What begins as scattered individual prayers becomes a single, connected act of intercession.
Why it works
This practice does three important things at once.
First, it slows prayer down. Writing a name requires a pause. Choosing one or two people or needs encourages discernment. We can’t focus on everything at once – but we can pray faithfully for individuals or an issue.
Second, it embodies solidarity. Each link is incomplete and isolated on its own. Only when joined does the chain have strength and length. We carry one another’s concerns, quite literally, in our hands.
Third, it makes compassion public. No one needs to explain their prayer. No one ranks needs. The chain holds grief, hope, fear, and love side by side, without commentary. That restraint is part of its power.
How to lead it well
Keep your instructions clear and calm. Say something like:
“Write on your paper strips the names of one or two people, or situations, you are holding in prayer. When you are ready, bring your strips forward and link them to the chain. Together, we will hold these prayers before God.”
Resist the temptation to over-talk. Let the people’s action do the spiritual work.
You could ask two or three congregation members to come forward and lift up the chain during the Benediction as a sign that the prayers the community are now carried into the world.
A deeper truth
The Chain of Compassion quietly proclaims something central to Christian faith – that love is never abstract. It is named. It is specific. It is shared. And it is stronger when it is linked.
This is worship that looks like the kingdom – ordinary materials, human hands, and a community choosing to hold the world together, one fragile link at a time.
Ngā mihi
Philip