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1.) Carol shares an inspiring story from last tuesday’s momentous day.
2.) I’ve enjoyed some of the prayers that Christine Sine has put together, here she provides an advent meditation and some other advent resources.
3.) JR Woodward provides a primer on the missional church.
4.) In this season of stewardship in the church, Andrew Sullivan points to a book review by Ron Sider about Christians and giving.
1.) Matt at Glocal Christianity frequently points to some great sources for quality, global Christian art. In this post he points to Japanese Christian artist Sadao Watanabe.
2.) Be There…a challenge to those who struggle with repetitive prayer.
3.) Tony Jones challenges the notion that America is an “empire.” Not sure I totally agree…just because we don’t have an emperor doesn’t mean we don’t have the traits characteristic of an empire. It’s worth considering his thoughts, and the comments that follow.
4.) This is pretty funny: Are you ready for Feb 17, 2009?
5.) Today’s photo captures what we all should take the time to do this fall.
Here are a few items for my Wednesday Roundup:
1.) A “broken blessing”
2.) Michael Kruse explains Intrade and tells us how it is forecasting this year’s election. I checked Intrade the day before John McCain made his VP announcement and noticed that Sarah Palin was the projected nominee.
3.) Missional Order looks like a promising new website, to help faith communities form a new missional identity. (ht: missional church network)
4.) This past week, I added some new photoblogs to my google reader, so today’s photos, Honey Wheat and Blade of Light, come from two of those new blogs.
This sermon was preached on August 31, 2008. The text was Matthew 16:21-27.
In the scripture passage we read last week, Jesus and his disciples were in the city of Ceaserea Phillip, a place of strategic significance to the Roman Empire and its interests in the land of Palestine. The city also had held connections to pagan mythology and to the worship of the Canaanite fertility god, Baal.
In that place Jesus asked his disciples. “Who do you say that I am?” It was Peter of all the disciples who dared to step up and say to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”
It was a daring thing for Peter to say. Within the shadow of the Roman Empire Peter said that Jesus was King and Caesar was not. And, in that place of pagan worship, Peter said that Jesus was Son of the Living God, worthy of worship in contrast to the pagan gods surrounding them.
This proclamation of faith brought praise from Jesus. Listen to what Jesus tells Peter,
Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.
1.) Christine Sine offers an excellent centering prayer.
2.) While we use a prayer of confession in our service every Sunday, I’ve not given much honest thought as to what that prayer might look like for a pastor. The Naked Pastor gets the ball rolling for me.
3.) The ancient spiritual practice of Lectio Divina is becoming popular again as a form of devotional Bible reading. Here is a guide to Lectio Divina as introduced by the African Delegation to the Lambeth Conference.
4.) All I can do is say “Wow!” when it comes to this photo.
This the first sermon is a six part sermon series on discipleship questions. The text for this sermon was: Matthew 7: 21-29. I’m a little slow in posting it, this was preached on June 1st.
As you probably know by now, I like to read the comic strips in the Gazette. One that has quickly become my favorite is called Frazz. It follows the story of a fitness freak who is a twenty-something janitor at a local elementary school.
This week one of the young students at the school was searching for a four leaf clover, hoping to find a little luck. Well, on Friday, she finally found her lucky four leaf clover. So, she decided to show it to Mrs. Olsen, her teacher who is a bit of a curmudgeon.
As you might expect, Mrs. Olsen responds to the student’s excitement and enthusiasm over her discovery by dousing water on it. Mrs. Olsen says, “Bah, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in work.”
In the next frame, the young student and Frazz are talking about this incident and the student says to Frazz, “Apparently buying 30 lotto tickets a week is “work.”
I love it. That young student has connected the dots between what her teacher says she believes and what her teacher actually does.
She knows that Mrs. Olsen buys lottery tickets, perhaps in the hopes of being freed from her job. And while Mrs. Olsen says she believes in work, by her behavior the student can see that she really believes or hopes in luck.
Just a couple of cool things to point you to:
2.) Creative Prayer - ideas for prayer stations for use in worship gatherings
3.) Pentecost: the church on fire.
4.) Here’s your photo for the week: just about the most adorable girl you’ll ever see.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been slowly working on the culture of prayer in our congregation. It’s not the quickest or easiest thing to do to change the spiritual ethos of any congregation, but here are few things we’ve done to help with that.
* About three or four months ago we began to publish a list of prayer requests in our worship bulletin. As a result, during the week, I’ve been getting phone calls and e-mails from congregation members wanting various people and needs put on the prayer list. A number of people have shared with me that they appreciate knowing that their concern is being lifted up by others in prayer. Right now the list leans heavily toward prayers for health concerns, but I’ve been thinking about expanding that and including other areas of concern on the list.
* When I first started here, I began our session meetings with a scripture and a short devotion and then asked session members for their joys and concerns. We have a prayer we say together and then I invite elders to pray, as they feel led, for the various joys and concerns as they’ve been mentioned. Sometimes, I’ll ask an elder at the end of the session meeting to close us in prayer too. I’m sure some are terrified by this, but I’m always surprised and pleased when an elder I haven’t heard pray before steps up to do it.
* I haven’t done as much of this as I’d like, but I’ve tried different types of prayers as models during the pastoral prayer portion of the worship service. I’d like to experiment with this more. In the past I have prayed model prayers, for instance I’ve used the five finger prayer and the Lord’s prayer as an outline and then prayed for specific things within that framework. I have also used bidding prayers where I suggest a category and invite people to pray for things silently (one time a congregational member actually prayed out loud, I’d love to hear more of that, and have wondered about encouraging more of that!!) I hope this helps people think about all the types of things they can and should be praying for.
All of these things I think are helping to re-shape the spiritual ethos of our congregation. I hope they are helping people see the different ways they can pray and I hope they are helping give them more confidence about prayer.
I’d be curious to hear if you have any creative ways of encouraging the growth of prayer in your congregation?
Earlier this week, I spent two days with the Dominican Sisters at Sinsinawa on a personal spiritual retreat. I didn’t have a lot on my agenda except to relax, read, and pray.
One book I took along with me and subsequently spent a whole day devouring was Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton. I would highly recommend this book if you are looking for some encouragement on how to integrate various spiritual disciplines in your life. Barton’s book is winsome and engaging and by far the best book on the spiritual disciplines that I’ve encountered in a long time.
As a result of my time away and specifically in reflection on this book, here are a few reflections I’ve come away with:
1.) The intrusion of technology on my life has robbed me of significant quality time in other areas of my life. Because of an always on computer: I read less, I spend less time developing my spiritual life, and I spend less quality time in relationship with my wife. So I’ve come away realizing that I need to set limits: No computer time between 9PM and 9AM. Cull down the number of blogs I follow in my google reader. Close the laptop on the desk in my office more often. Check e-mail 2-3 times a day, not constantly. Make Sunday a sabbath day from the computer.
2.) I need to find ways to spend more time cultivating my spiritual life. There are two disciplines that Barton speaks of that seem especially appropriate for me at this time in my life. The first is the discipline of prayer, especially focusing in on the idea of breath prayer and also dedicating specific time each day I’m in the office to just sit in the sanctuary and pray. The second is the discipline of honoring the body, especially getting more serious about excercising three times a week and doing more reading/studying on the connection between the body and the spirit.
All in all it was a great retreat. Even though I initially felt guilty about spending the time away from the office and from my wife, it was time well spent and that will prove beneficial to me, to my wife, and to the church I serve. And, hopefully, I will feel less guilty about doing it again!
Now, I’m going to close the lid on this laptop and head into the sanctuary to spend a few moments in prayer before I spend the rest of my afternoon working on my sermon for Sunday.
Peace be with you.
This is the second in a sermon series on “Faithful Questions.” This sermon addresses the topic of prayer and takes Psalm 42 and Luke 11:1-13 as its primary texts. It was to have been originally preached on Feb 17th, but was delayed a week due to cancellation of worship because of a winter storm.
Imagine if you will what it would be like to try to live the Bible as literally as possible for one whole year. I personally think it would be pretty challenging.
The good news is you don’t have to try it for yourself to find out what it would be like because one fellow has already done it. His name is A.J. Jacobs, and he’s a writer for Esquire magazine. He writes about his year in a new book called, “The Year of Living Biblically.”
There is a somewhat humorous scene from the book where Jacobs figures out the most commonly mentioned punishment in the Hebrew Bible is stoning. He also discovers this loophole: the bible doesn’t say what size the stones have to be.
Hoping to find someone to stone, Jacobs – who lives in NY City - heads out to Central Park dressed up in his biblical garb; a white robe, tassels, and a staff, and he also brings along a handful of small white pebbles.
This coming week I’m doing a sermon on “How does prayer work?” as part of my “Faithful Questions” sermon series. As I reflect more on that question, I’m not so sure I can answer it. Right now it’s only Monday, but I’m inclined to think that my answer will be some variation of “I don’t really know.”
Regardless, I’m really looking forward to the exercise of studying about prayer this week. I really hope that others will benefit from my bringing the subject into the pulpit. As I begin my study, here are few related questions that have been popping into my mind. Maybe those of you who are wiser can help share some light on these subjects:
For instance: why does someone pour out their heart to you about their various physical maladies but when you ask them if you can place their name on the prayer chain or if you can pray for them in church you get a flat out “no”?
Now I realize that maybe the issue has nothing to do with prayer but everything to do with a concern for privacy. But putting that concern aside, I also wonder: Do they think God doesn’t want to be bothered with their problems, or that their problems are trivial compared to other things we could pray for? Is there, perhaps, some experience in the past where they prayed to God and it seemed as if their prayers weren’t answered? Should I ask them why they say “no”?
At the same time, when one asks a group of folks what should be prayed for why is it that people usually just give you a list of people they know who are sick and traveling? Or course God is concerned for those things and I absolutely love to hear that people want to have those needs lifted to God in prayer.
But, shouldn’t we also be praying for rocky marriages, troubles that our teens are facing, and the people in our life we find it hard to forgive? Maybe part of the problem is that church is not a safe place to mention those types of things. If that’s the issue how do we move beyond that so we can truly meet people where they are and talk and pray about the real issues they are dealing with?
Shouldn’t we be praying too for the big and meaningful things that Jesus taught us to ask for, that God’s kingdom would indeed come on earth as it is in heaven. That means we should not only be praying for the sick and those who travel, but also for meeting the needs of the poor, the end of genocide in the Sudan, our US elections, and an end to war in Iraq.
Anyway, these are just a few of the questions rambling in my head this morning, as I get ready to tackle the subject of prayer this week.
1.) Recently, guns and church have been a significant source of conversation in the blogosphere following the slayings at New Life Church and YWAM headquarters in Colorado. Bob Hyatt offers his thoughts on why churches should not be armed, while Todd Rhoades points to an article offering an alternate opinion. Personally - as one who has never shot a gun in his life - I’m inclined to lean towards Bob Hyatt’s sentiment, but I can also see the argument of the other side. Very tough issue no matter how you slice it.
2.) We’ve not sent out Christmas cards yet, mostly because it’s been pretty crazy and hectic, as advent usually is, around the Wunder-Bonewald household. We hope to get around to it, but I’m more inclined to employ this argument for not sending out cards or letters this year.
3.) Adam shares his struggles and learnings on the topic of prayer.
4.) I am a big fan of the Naked Pastor, especially his wonderful artwork which you can buy at his store on E-bay. If I had $220 of indispensable cash, I would buy one of his larger works like this one in a heartbeat.
5.) And just in case you are wondering what to get me for Christmas, here is my Amazon Wish List!
Malibu Presbyterian Church has lost its church building in the fires sweeping through southern California. Pray for the pastor and their congregation as well as for all the folks who are being displaced as a result of these fires.
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