christian living on Liturgy

The liturgy is the place where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much. The liturgy is not an act of will. It is not a series of activities designed to attain a spiritual mental sta...

Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, excit...

When I am away from Liturgy for too long, I find I burn for it now, for the steadiness of the calendar, the words" that ring out in repetition, the heavy scented air. When I return each week, I a...

Thanksgiving is thus the liturgy of Christian living. It is the continuous sacrifice that Christians offer. Gratitude to God is the continuous sanctification of the world.

Liturgical time raises our sights above the dailiness of life to the essence of life.

I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed.

But if roteness is a danger, it is also the way liturgy works. When you don't have to think all the time about what words you are going to say next, you are free to fully enter into the act of pra...

Why is it that countless American school-children memorize the Gettysburg Address each year? Is it a simple civics lesson? An opportunity to learn about the Civil War, a turning point in American hist...

It is not a gathering of 'escapees' from the world, bitterly enjoying their escape, feeding their hate for the world. Listen to their psalms and hymns; contemplate the transparent beauty of th...

“…the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, s...

As in ancient Israel, thanksgiving had a liturgical form in the communities of early Christians. In talking about tongues, Paul says that one who does not know the tongue cannot join in the “Amen” at ...

When one prays the hours, one is using the exact words, phrases, and petitions that informed our faith for centuries…We are using the exact words, phrases, and petitions that were offered just an hour...

Years ago, during a vacation in New Hampshire, Jonathan and I climbed Mount Washington, which is notorious for erratic weather. It can change from sunny and warm to snowing in a few hours. The wind is...

How do you deliver the authentic faith and great wisdom of the past into the new cultural situation of the twenty-first century? The way into the future, I argue, is not an innovative new start for th...

Why worship in our native language? Well, for one thing, it can keep people from distorting the Christian faith into a superstition: In one stream of church history, this can help explain worshipi...

The Christian church sings. It is not a choral society. Its singing is not a concert. But from inner, material necessity it sings. Singing is the highest form of human expression....What we can and mu...

We confess to the Lord, despite the fact that we know he will forgive us, for he did his forgiving back when Caesar ruled and executioners had hammers that were crass and killing cruel. We confess not...

Prayer Service for Peace in Israel and Palestine This service is designed as an evening, outdoor prayer vigil using handheld candles. Feel free to modify the order of worship as needed, including...

The liturgy of the Eucharist is best understood as a journey or procession. It is the journey of the Church into the dimension of the Kingdom. We use the word 'dimension' because it seems the ...

Introduction This message is primarily directed to my friends for whom the word “lectionary” sounds like a disease. I, too, once shared your visceral shudder when someone uttered the phrase “lectiona...

Break out the carnations! Mother's Day is coming. Mother's Day is a little tricky for pastors, though. It's a spring morning, things are finally warming up (in Northern climes, anyway), an...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Packed with Singular Meaning, A Pilgrim Song We have three verses packed with singular meaning⸺unity. “How good and pleasant it is when brothers and si...

My Daily Soundtrack Often, my daily life is filled with a soundtrack of my own choosing. When I sit for long periods of time to do something rather mundane, like reconcile the checkbook, pay bills, ...

A Special Kind of Story Most Christians have some idea of what a parable is. Ask an adult Sunday school class and you might hear: “It’s a story!” Another might chime in, “with a moral message!” Mer...

For most of us “seasoned preachers,” when we come to the conclusion that we need a sermon illustration, our minds instantly think “story.” Many preachers use the words interchangeably, but as we will ...

This week, we have chosen two illustrations that describe the nature of waiting, and perhaps can inspire each of us to wait well as we long for life to return, at least in part, to normalcy: Hope y...

In her excellent book, Liturgy of the Ordinary , author Tish Harrison Warren deals with an issue on many people's minds: why is it that so many people, especially younger generations, don't...

The practice of confession in the context of a liturgy or in a private ecclesiastical setting has declined drastically over the past fifty years, and in particular since the Protestant Reformation in ...

In the Anglican liturgy the passing of the peace comes after confession and absolution, on the heels of our reminder that we are forgiven. This too is no coincidence. Our forgiveness and reconciliatio...