liturgy on Poetry

The most carefully crafted language in our culture tends to be poetry. And poetry at its finest moments subverts our best attempts at hiding from reality... The poetry of liturgy has just this power. ...

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

[People] need to find words that can reconnect them with each other. That is the gift of good liturgy, yeah. We're not talking about fluffy stuff. We're talking about real life for people arou...

The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good t...

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...

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...

What is Liturgy? I know that not all of us come from so-called “liturgical” traditions, but all of us do use a liturgy of sorts. Liturgy is a compound Greek word meaning “public work” that is associa...

Like liturgy, the work of cleaning draws much of its meaning and value from repetition, from the fact that it is never completed, but only set aside until the next day. Both liturgy and what is euphem...

Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize ...

Liturgy is not, in the end, open to our emotional whims. it re-points the person praying, taking him somewhere else.

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...

Liturgy prevents the narrative form of Scripture from being reduced to private individualized consumption.

We aren’t just conversing with each other when we recite the Psalms antiphonally or responsively. We are talking to God, too. Reminding one another and God of his promises and our complaints. We are w...

The best liturgies in use in Christian churches are ancient, well-worn compositions permeated with scriptural language skillfully deployed across a series of pastoral pronouncements, prayers, congrega...

The liturgy lives out a story in a story-deprived world. Liturgy is not a once-upon-a-time story we merely watch others perform. We are the characters in this story, actors in the divine drama whose o...

The foundations of my Christian faith were laid in mid-20th century fundamentalist churches. For introducing me to Jesus, I am grateful. However, over the years I have had to cast aside and recover fr...

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

It is useful to reflect that the word 'liturgy' did not originate in church or worship settings. In the Greek world it referred to publish service, what a citizen did for the community. As the...

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...

Independence Weekend Prayer for Unity VOICE ONE — Psalm 133 How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the b...

A Blue Christmas Service is offered especially for those hurting during the holidays. It’s often offered December 21, the longest night of the year. Some come because they are mourning the death of...

Since Moses was in Egypt land, Gods people have been struggling for justice while singing freedom songs. Theology can be clarifying. A good sermon has its place. But nothing is more essential for the ...

In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.

(Leader) Heavenly Father, we come before you to give thanks as we near the end of 2020 a year of confusion, conflict, CoronaVirus, quarantine, and shut down, But what does it even look like to be trul...

Liturgy and worship were never meant to be confined to the cathedrals and sanctuaries. Liturgy at its best can be performed like a circus or theater - making the Gospel visible as a witness to the wor...

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...

Cosmic time, which is determined by the sun, becomes a representation of human time and of historical time, which moves toward union of God and the world, of history and the universe, of matter and sp...

Your Easter morning services should do two things: put on a rip-roaring celebration for the most joyful event in history and invite newcomers and Christmas-and-Easter attenders to join in, building a ...

Ancient worship . . . does truth. All one has to do is to study the ancient liturgies to see that liturgies clearly do truth by their order and in their substance. This is why so many young people tod...

Step back in time to when you weren’t leading worship, but to a time, whether as an adult or a child, when you arrived a few minutes early to church. Maybe you began to pray for God to help you focus ...