Tuesday, July 12, 2011

How the Prayers of Others Help the Worship-Challenged

Interesting reflection from Stanley Hauerwas:

The worship of God does not come naturally to me, as it seems to for some. I live most of my life as if God does not exist. Yet I know I would not have survived without the prayers of friends who have learned to pray the prayers of the church. My life depends on learning to worship God with those who have made it possible for me to go on. Through worship, the world learns the truth that is required for our being truthful about ourselves and one another.
Two key themes emerge in that paragraph: 

1. For many of us not so gifted, the prayers of others are necessary to sustain and shape our own prayers. 

2. Worship is about truth (see John 4:23-24). In worship we encounter the one who is the Truth, we hear both the good news and the bad news about our own condition, and we learn to be truthful by proclaiming the truth. 

In the end, it is because of the rough confrontation with the truth that we know we need the prayers of others.

The quotation is from Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010), p. 159.
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Friday, April 29, 2011

An Easter Prayer from Mark Galli

Every year, my Christianity Today colleague Mark Galli composes an Easter prayer which he offers as family and friends gather for his family's Easter dinner. On Monday, he shared this with the CT staff, and with his permission, I'd like to share it with you before this Easter Week is over.


Easter Prayer 2011

O Risen Lord, be our resurrection and life.

Be the resurrection and the life for us and all whom you have made.

Be the resurrection and the life for those caught in the grip of sin and addiction.

Be the resurrection and the life for those who feel forsaken.

Be the resurrection and the life for those who live as if you do not.

Be the resurrection and the life for those who do not believe they need resurrection and life.

Be the resurrection and the life in churches that believe they are dying, and in successful churches who don’t know they are dead.

Be the resurrection and the life in us who know the good but fail to do it, who have not been judged but still judge, who know love but still live for self, who know hope but succumb to despair.

Be the resurrection and the life for those dying of malnutrition and hunger.

Be the resurrection and life for those imprisoned unjustly and those imprisoned justly.

Be the resurrection and life for those who live under regimes that seek to crush all who proclaim resurrection and life.

Be the resurrection and the life for those in the throes of sickness that leads to death.

Be the resurrection and the life in families where the weak are maltreated by the strong.

Be the resurrection and the life in marriages that are disintegrating.

Be the resurrection and the life for women trafficked and enslaved by the forces of wickedness.

Be the resurrection and the life for those whose lives are snuffed out in the womb.

Be the resurrection and the life for anyone anywhere who knows suffering and death in any form, and for Creation itself, which groans in travail.

Be the resurrection and life in the life we share and the fellowship we enjoy, that filled anew with the wonder of your love and the power of your grace, we may go forth to proclaim your resurrection life to a world in the grip of death and yet on the verge of redemption, a redemption promised by you and assured by what occurred on the first Easter morn.

Amen.

Although Mark wrote the prayer for use before a festival meal, it can easily be adapted for liturgical use.

Mark Galli is the author of Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy (Paraclete, 2008) and eight other books.
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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Video: Singing the Bible in Worship

Every month, the editors of Christianity Today prepare a video introduction to our digital edition. The digital edition is a bonus feature available only to print subscribers, but the video introduction is always available on YouTube.

The March edition of CT features four articles on worship or worship music, so I decided to say a few words in this video about the relationship between the Bible and our singing.


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Here's a fun fact that got edited out for length: 


Almost 250 years after the publication of the Genevan Psalter, when John Newton and his friend William Cowper were writing hymns like "Amazing Grace" and "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood," they had to avoid singing these hymns in the Sunday morning service. That would have attracted negative attention from the church authorities, so these hymns were restricted to the less formal Sunday evening service. Read more!