silent prayer

relationships with anyone, be it your spouse, children, family and/or friends, is best built on communication that has lots of variety, sincerity, and humility (preferring the other in love). 

praying silently to the Lord is great, and personally i spend probably 99% of my prayer life praying silently and/or quietly privately between myself and the Lord throughout each day.

however, some folks make it a religious practice of silent prayer being the ONLY way to pray, and they look down their noses at anyone that thinks otherwise.

the truth is, praying silently can be abused as a religious practice as much as praying out loud can be abused as a religious practice.

the key is moderation in all things, and while we have a lot of liberty in how we pray and worship, whatever we do must be done decently and in order, within the boundaries described by God in scripture. (1Cor 14:40)

i can find nothing in the Bible that would suggest that we should ONLY pray out loud, and nothing in the Bible that we should ONLY pray silently.  instead, there are lots of examples in the old and new testament of both silent and out loud prayer.

there are numerous examples of both corporate and individual prayer being done out loud.  Jesus Himself prayed out loud and prayed out loud when making the meal time blessing (Matt 14:19-21; Matt 15:34-36; Matt 26:26; Luke 24:30; John 17; Acts 1:14; 1:24; 8:15; 16:25; 20:36; 27:35; 1Cor 10:30)

if there wasn't spoken prayer, then how could the other members of the body be in agreement?  Matt 18:19-20

the Bible clearly teaches that having someone pray out loud in a way that others could understand during a gathering of believers was good for the edification, teaching, and agreement of others (1Cor 14:15-19)

at the same time, there are clearly wrong ways of praying out loud.  prayer becomes a religious exercise when it is just vain repetition that loses meaning and/or when the motivation for praying is done to draw attention to the "piety" of the one praying  (Luke 18:10-14; Luke 20:46-47; Matt 6:5)

the key to keep in mind is not the religious practice, but the relationship...

the question to ask is: how can i best go about building my relationship with God?

relationships with anyone, be it your spouse, children, family and/or friends, is best built on communication that has lots of variety, sincerity, and humility (preferring the other in love).

so the answer is to pray both silently and out loud, and whatever you do, be sure it is sincerely motivated by a desire for a stronger relationship with God.