Tag: liturgy

A Liturgy For A New Season

.Reading time 4 minutes.

We come before you, Lord, at the start of a new season.

So many unknowns are before us. 

We have so many questions, hopes, and fears that remain unanswered. We entrust each one to Your hands.

It is tempting, God, to start imagining all the things that could go wrong prematurely. We grasp at control by ruminating on all the worst case scenarios. 

Help us release our fear and uncertainty, and learn to trust You in each present moment.

There is so much to come; so many potential challenges:

Hardships that may rattle us.

Problems we won’t know how to solve.

Hopes dashed, hearts broken.

And also:

Friends we haven’t met yet.

Joy and excitement over learning and growing. 

Hopes met, and love discovered.

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Stay at Home Liturgy: To Let Go of being Impressive

.Reading time 2 minutes.

During this season I have come right up against my productivity and what I have to “show” for myself. Maybe you can relate. What have I accomplished, how much am I doing, how impressive is my life? In a slow season where our lives have been simplified significantly, it seems like a beautiful opportunity to throw away any desire to be impressive. One less heavy thing to carry. Here is today’s liturgy to help us in this release.

When our social calendars are thrown away,
when our work looks entirely different,
when our trips are cancelled,
when our events are postponed,
when what we have depended on to feel worthy is stripped away,
show us a new way, Lord. 

Circumstances have stolen our facades, the masks we hide behind to convince ourselves that we are doing enough.

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Stay at Home Liturgy: To Hold Things Loosely

.Reading time 2 minutes.

I don’t know about you, but the hardest part of this whole situation is trying to control everything and protect all the things I love. As I have written before I have come face to face in this season with how little control I truly have. So, here is a liturgy for living with open hands and leaving things in the trustworthy hands of God.

Our plans. Hopes. Loved ones.

Nothing makes us more aware that we are not in control than a time like this.
In fear and grasping for control we want to latch onto these things, grip them, hold on for dear life.
We think we can white-knuckle them into existence, or to keep them from changing.

We control almost nothing.
We have very little say, especially now, over what happens to our plans, our hopes, our loved ones.

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Stay at Home Liturgy: To Be Okay with Silence

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Today is the beginning of a new little project I have started, called “Stay at Home Liturgies.” Essentially, I am writing them to practice praying with intentionality. Come back on the next few Mondays and Fridays if you would like to practice them with me. I would recommend reading them out loud and slowly, only after you have taken a deep breath and are sitting down somewhere comfortable. A liturgy isn’t something to check off the to-do list, but instead something to digest and be transformed by.

In our mandate to stay at home, many of us have come face to face with an experience we try pretty hard to avoid: silence. We fill our days with any kind of activity or distraction to maintain a life that doesn’t have to deal with silence and what it brings with it. But there is so much good to be found there, so here is a prayer for all of us who are needing to embrace it…

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Our Daily Bread

.Reading time 9 minutes.

“In church on Sunday we participate in a liturgy – a ritualized way of worship – that we repeat each week and by which we are transformed. Even those traditions that claim to be freeform or nonliturgical include practices and patterns in worship. Therefore, the question is not whether we have a liturgy. The question is, ‘What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?’” (Liturgy of the Ordinary, 30-31)
I’m reading this new book (if you need a recommendation here it is), Liturgy of the Ordinary. It takes the daily activities of our lives (waking up, brushing our teeth, eating leftovers, checking email, etc.) and transforms them into spiritual practices with deep meaning. Overall, it is a reminder that every small part of our lives is important. Everything has meaning.

I’ve been particularly struck by the quote above, specifically the final lines: “The question is not whether we have a liturgy. The question is, ‘What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?’”

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