You may have noticed small changes to this blog. More are certainly coming to this site, the many that you may interact with, and change is coming or has arrived on the doorsteps of important, treasured institutions; even your faith. One change I’m making to this site is how I post from Martin Marty’s Sightings. Rather than post his entire email I’ll post a snippet and link to the web where you can read more. I encourage you to read Dr. Marty’s words on the topic, Losing Faith.
Losing Faith
Martin Marty | Sightings | December 16, 2013
However, Callahan and Company in Commonweal are alerting us that while sluggish and stupid religious institutions and hierarchies need criticism, renewal, and reform, the “sensitive crown” of the human heart needs ministering by symbols, whispers, invitations, and conversations that have more to do with “the mystery of faith” than with problems of the contemporary church and culture.
One of the best aspects of serving in Regional Ministry is the opportunity to visit many of our congregations during the year. Often, I am there for the morning to be present, sit in on a Sunday school class, and worship. But, sometimes I am there to offer words from the pulpit, communion table, teach a class, or like last Sunday, graced with the responsibility to offer the pastoral prayer. For the non-Disciples and possibly non-Christian who reads this blog, the pastoral prayer is a time when one voice offers a prayer of intercession during worship. Sometimes it is followed by the Lord’s Prayer, but it does not have to end this way. Here is the prayer I offered at First Christian Church in Edmond last Sunday. My thanks to the ministers, Rev. Chris Shorrow and Rev. Jerry Black for including me in worship leadership.
As the community of faith gathers for prayer I bare the gratitude of your Disciples siblings all across Oklahoma for your willful work to be a voice of Gospel here in Edmond. I encourage you focus on the image of the person for whom you are grateful this morning as we center hearts and minds for prayer.
Let us pray . . .
God who speaks and listens:
we’ve come to hear and experience good news:
Your steadfast love never ceases. Your mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
they are reviving with each breath we take.
Great is your faithfulness that you incarnate in all humanity and blossomed
in Jesus of Nazareth, who like prophets before him, bore witness to your
Good News with his life. It is Jesus’ birth that we celebrate as we wait for
your Advent of life giving hope, compassionate peace, balanced joy, and
steadfast love.
God who listens:
there are many people we are missing,
many relationships broken,
many known and unknown to us that have left this life and
are now in your presence.
Absorb the questions and cries of the grieving.
Embrace those praying for medication to work,
for tests to be negative,
for the skill of doctors and nurses.
Strengthen the voices and hands that speak out against
injustice and speak up for equality.
Rekindle your Spirit in each of us to be refuge and strength for our neighbors
in times of change, when the mountains shake and the waves roar,
when fortune blinds us, and when violence takes your children.
Celebrate and dance with us in our joys and laughter.
God who speaks:
help us filter out the noise of our culture and the routine mental
conversations so we can hear your will for our living.
Call us to service. Call us to live reconciled. Call us to prepare a way in
our own living to be disciples of Christ and proclaim your Good News today
and everyday we draw breath.
Call us to pray. Amen.