Prayer for the Seventh Week of Easter

God Almighty,

You sent your Son to conquer sin and death.
Through his death resurrection and resurrection
he sits at your right hand
and has claimed all authority in heaven and on earth.

May we live our lives as citizens of Christ’s kingdom
spreading the mercy and grace of Christ to all
and building his kingdom on this earth.

Amen

Prayer for the Sixth Week After Easter

God Almighty,

The warmth of the earth
does not compare to the warmth of your love.

You indwell the heavens.
The whole world is invigorated
by your power.

The grass grows and the birds sing
because of your grace.

Amen

Early Morning Walks

I woke up at five thirty to the sound of my neighbor leaving.

Rain was slowly dropping, not yet decided whether it would be a proper rain or a drizzle.

Only a few birds stirred.

My mind began to race.

I had a very busy day at work ahead and a busy weekend.

I laid there, barely any light coming through the window, and thoughts continued to barrage my mind. I couldn’t get back to sleep.

I got up.

I was out the door by 5:40, tennis shoes on, heading for the park with a hoodie on and my Dodgers hat.

There was one jogger on the whole circuit. He passed me from different directions each time. He was using the figure 8 course, and so he would run by me then a few minutes later come up from behind. He wore 80s style shorts that looked like the swimming trunks I wore when I was 5 and an old school Nike headband. I waved hello. He nodded.

I clutched my Nalgene in one hand and my prayer beads in another. I had not been outside this early in several weeks, and my pre-caffeinated mind struggled to put the words together.

I thumbed the beads. People I hadn’t prayed for in several months came to mind, and I used each bead to pray for them.

I prayed over all the thoughts running through my head.

Then I walked home to face the day.

Wonderful World of Worship

This past Sunday my family went to a local Presbyterian church to worship. I was asked to assist the leaders of the church with their vision for worship, an area I have grown in while serving at The Plant.

So off we went.

The service was at the same time, but there were no drums, guitars, speakers, monitors, projector screens, video cameras, stages or folding chairs.

Instead, there was an organ, a choir, robes & vestments, pews, stained glass windows, hymnals and a piano.

So much was different—the whole look and feel, how people spoke to you, how they greeted you, how they smiled—yet there is so much that is the same.

There was a lot that was different. But why look at the differences when we should look at the similarities?

There was so much that was similar. The order of service had much in common, communion was served. People were blessed and prayed over. Lives were shared. Food was eaten. It was a calm and beautiful and simple.

Christians are all part of a wonderful world of worship. There is so much that is new and exciting and different, so much that is tantalizing and easy to run off and join, only to latch on to the next best thing. Worship can be turned into a flavor of the week.

Being part of a wonderful world of worship is not about choosing which part of the world we like to live in. We all should do that. The real critical decision is the one that comes after: once we have chosen we should decide to stay put. There is so much energy wasted in the endless chase for “worship” when there is a whole world of worship most will never be able to explore.

There is a wonderful world of worship out there, but none is as important as the world of worship that happens every week with your own faith community. As this next Sunday approaches take a few moments to take in the worship that is happening all around you, then join in, knowing you are part of something that is just as deep, profound and exciting as anything the world has to offer.

Follow Everyday Liturgy

I wanted to let my readers know that the RSS feed and email subscriptions for Everyday Liturgy were experiencing an issue and it has been fixed. I use FeedBurner for all of my RSS and subscriptions and the problem originated with that service.

While I was fixing the feed I thought it was a good opportunity to let you know about the many different ways you can subscribe to Everyday Liturgy:

Feed: You can subscribe to Everyday Liturgy using Google Reader, Yahoo!, AOL and many other readers using this link.

E-mail: Receive every Everyday Liturgy post in your inbox using this link.

Facebook: You can read every Everyday Liturgy post on Facebook using this link.

Twitter: You can find links to posts and other items on my Twitter feed.