Among Evangelical and Charismatic Christians, reactions to liturgical aspects of worship and prayer vary greatly from intrigue, to delight, to bewilderment, to straight up scoffing. This series will attempt to explain some of the reasons behind liturgical prayer aimed at people with little or no (positive) experience with it, though ideally it will also be [...]
My apologies – I meant to say, “how to develop an easy, consistent, diverse, deep, rich in content, broadly-biblical, non-idiosyncratic, Christ-centered, historically-rooted, well-rounded, manageable and profoundly moving prayer life,” but thought that title was at the same time unwieldy and immediately open to the charge of being outside the realm of possibility for the majority of [...]
If you’re like me, celebrating Advent may conjure up childhood memories of those peculiar “Advent Calendars” where you pop out a piece of chocolate each day as Christmas nears. Suffice to say, not all approaches to celebrating the Church Year are equally inspiring. Nevertheless, as I have come to seriously celebrate the Church Year, it [...]
After having gone through the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) order for Evening Prayer in some detail, I will now show some of the unique aspects of Morning Prayer. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are very similar. They both have the same four part general structure I outlined previously:
1) The Opening
2) The Psalms
3) The Readings
4) [...]
If you’ve been following along this series (or learned to pray the BCP Office by other means), after an attempt or two (or perhaps just upon hearing), it may seem daunting with all the flipping of pages and navigating through the book to find the appropriate material for each section. It may seem far from [...]
How often have you sat down to pray and have not known what to say? You may even care deeply about a specific topic, but after sixty to ninety seconds your creativity has run its course and you find yourself spending more energy and thought on determining what to say than actually relating to God. [...]
The Word of God does not simply give us information about religious truths. Rather the Word of God is the central medium through which we come to know and experience God (cf. Lk. 24:32). It is furthermore the central agency through which God accomplishes justice on earth in and through his people (cf. Isa. 55:7-13). [...]
Part 1 – The Christian Year
Part 2 – Introducing the Book of Common Prayer
Part 3 – The Opening
Part 4 – The Psalms
Part 5 – The Readings
Part 6 – The Prayers
Part 7 – Making it Easy (in fact, brainless…)
Part 8 – Morning Prayer
Part 9 – The “Little” Offices (Midday and Compline)
Part 10 – Connecting with God [...]
The Book of Psalms is an incredible gift of God to the Church. Regularly singing the entire book of Psalms is the spiritual practice I commend to people most frequently. Their uniqueness lies in while most of Scripture portrays the history of Israel from either a God’s-eye or birds-eye view, the Psalm give us the inside [...]
Transcendence is what comes to mind, when I think of joining in the very prayers the Church has made from its earliest days. One type of prayer expresses what is in our hearts. Another type of prayer lifts us into an expanse far transcending the confines of our limited self. Prayers and hymns whose life extend [...]
