'prayer' Tagged Posts
Toward Sunday
This week we consider Prayer alongside Psalm 92.1-4,12-15 as we move into week 3 of our worship series on practicing Christian disciplines to stay in love with God. We will also thank our Godly Play teachers for watching over our children in love this year in worship with a short liturgy of gratitude. Matt has been able to complete drafts of two chapters and is working this week on finishing what we hope will be our third chapter. His writing has…
Toward Sunday
We are so grateful for our worship yesterday and celebration of the historic Supreme Court decision to support marriage equality. All means all. Amen. We conclude our three-week worship series this week on Prayer. It is based on two books: Help, Thanks, Wow The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott and Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. This series comes from the desires expressed in so many of our Deep Commitments regarding prayer. While we may…
Thanks
Flora Slosson Wuellner has studied and written a great deal on prayer. In her book Prayer, Stress and Our Inner Wounds she suggests giving thanks for our bodies, often neglected and unappreciated: “Occasionally through the day, give a loving thought to your bodily parts which are being used: your eyes, hands, feet, arms, legs, brain. They are your good friends who work with you…Listen to any signals your body sends you of stress or tension. At these times,….relax your breathing, picture…
Toward Sunday
We continue our three-week worship series this week on Prayer based on two books: Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott and Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. This series comes from the desires expressed in so many of our Deep Commitments last fall. While we may not answer all the questions raised by our Deep Commitments regarding prayer, we do hope to focus on 3 areas: the history of prayer, praying in…
Toward Sunday
We begin a new three-week worship series this week on Prayer. It is based on two books: Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott and Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. This series comes from the desires expressed in so many of our Deep Commitments regarding prayer. While we may not answer all the questions raised by our Deep Commitments, we do hope to focus on 3 areas: the history of prayer, praying in community, and the personal…
Art Crash
Death is often unrecognizable. Dying occurs all around us. We might be shopping at the market and standing next to someone who is a hospice patient. Those of us in grief are expected to move forward from it sooner than we are able. There is also “disenfranchised loss” which happens when children go to kindergarten, friends move away, parents downsize family homes for retirement, infertility and miscarriage. All of these losses cause grief but are mostly hidden or not recognized as…
A prayer before sleep.
Radiant Morning Star, you are both guidance and mystery, Visit our rest with disturbing dreams, and our journeys with strange companions. Grace us with the hospitality to open our hearts and homes to visitors filled with unfamiliar wisdom bearing profound and unusual gifts. Amen. (from the Revised Common Lectionary Prayerbook)
Prayer
Before you go to sleep tonight take time to think back over the day. Silently offer to God whatever words you have spoken that have not been wise, true or kind. Allow yourself few moments of quiet. Close your silence with this simple prayer: Loving God, we offer these words to you in our hearts knowing that they may have caused harm. Forgive us. Help us to use words that reflect your love. Amen. What would it be like for you…
Toward Sunday
We continue our four-week worship series this week called Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. We hope this worship series will help us to talk about following Jesus in our everyday lives. We will focus on talking about faith in the real world today…in our work lives and our volunteer commitments and our families. Our worship series is based on a book called Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian by Thomas G. Long, a professor of theology and preaching at Candler School of Theology. Outline of Talking Ourselves into Being Christian July…
Shepherd’s Voice
The sheep follow because they know the shepherd’s voice. —John 10.4 There are voices in the streets within: the sales pitches and the rants, the thrilled anxiety of lurking disaster, the voice of the displeased father, the unhappy mother, the fearful voices that remind you how you should fit in and don’t, what you have to do and can’t, who you ought to be and won’t. Don’t listen to that rush of that traffic, the chanting of those crowds.…
Prayer
Rescue me, O God, from the foolishness of presuming to know what I do not know. Save me from failing to trust whom I can trust. Allow your comfort to enter me. Help me prepare for you as you are and will be. Amen. (based on a prayer by John Indermark from Parables and Passion p. 77)
Prayer
“I thank you, O God, for grace that did not uproot me when I showed more of my expertise at doing harm than my longing to do good. Teach me to practice such patience so that I might see the beautiful potential of myself, others, even my enemies. Amen.
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