Life lessons in ministry & church leadership
I am a big believer, fan, and proponent of the traditional Lord’s Prayer. In times of struggle or when the fires of my faith were dim I’ve always found solace in the prayer Jesus taught. I recently took part in a video church service and discovered this progressive take on the classical prayer and I wanted to pass it along…
Continue reading “Lord’s Prayer: A contemporary interpretation by Rev. James Burklo”
Tommorrow is Father’s Day and if you’re like me, this particular holiday has never really ranked up there as one of my favorites. I had a tumultuous and conflict ridden relationship with my biological dad and to this day we are completely estranged. I’m really OK with that because I have moved on in life and have enjoyed lots of strong, healthy male influences in my life that filled that space in my life. Additionally, my dad has demonstrated time and again that he has no interest in knowing me.
Continue reading “A good good father”The Rev. Patrick Keyser shares this morning that although he’s always believed that prayer is essential to the Christian life, he often felt inadequate for the task. Outside of the public liturgy, many of us are uncomfortable with prayer. Our reading this morning offers us a place to begin our prayers.
Personally, I am comfortable with both extemporaneous and scripted prayer. The situation, audience, and context many times will lend itself to one or the other. Sometimes you will even do both. I’m also a big fan of the Lord’s Prayer. If there is such a thing as a “one size fits all” approach to prayer the Our Father fits the bill!
The biggest thing to remember is that prayer is a form of communion and communication with God. It’s a spiritual discipline that needs to be practiced and an art form to be nurtured and developed. There really isn’t a right way or wrong way to pray and it’s best to just carve out times in your life to just do it.