Toward The Daily Office

 Fourth Thursday of Easter

Lectionary Texts:

Acts 8:14-25

John 15:1-8

Thanks to Jennifer and April for their comments. 

There will be a couple of changes coming to the blog at the end of July. Many of you get the blog through email.  At the end of July, Blogspot will cease to do email. You will need to access the blog through your web browser. Most of you are already doing it that way. Simply go to your web browser and type in christiansspirituality.blogspot.com

When we finish the Acts Bible Study, which I think will be around the end of July, I want to focus most of my energy on The Daily Office Project. I also hope to get some of you interested in it who originally said you weren't.  I will probably write four days a week on the Project. I would like to continue the Travelogue Mondays, if you are finding them interesting. I would like to reserve one other day each week for other things that come up in the way of national and denominational church news. 

Tomorrow's blog will be The Order of St. Luke Daily Office Morning Prayer for tomorrow, the fourth Friday of Easter. That will take up the entire blog tomorrow. I'm never quite sure about copyright laws, but I doubt that I will be imprisoned for this.

What I would like for you to do is to read it and then pray it. You might ask what's the difference between reading it and praying it. I don't know whether I can adequately describe that difference, but here goes. Reading it is simply gleaning the information in it. Praying it is directing your reading to God. 

I want to note also that the readership of the blog has declined steadily over the last few months. We're now averaging only about 15 readers a day. It does seem to me that the readers we have now are folks that have been truly dedicated readers all along. I fear that I might lose a few more when I start going full-steam on The Daily Office Project. Perhaps I should not fear this. Perhaps I should just be grateful to find some people who are interested in being involved in the Project and in learning more about The Daily Office. 

Participation will have no requirements, but I will have some recommendations. Here's one. There are three books you should buy, that we will be referencing frequently. All are readily available through Amazon, Cokesbury, and other book sources. First is the United Methodist Hymnal (UMH). The Hymnal is a much more bountiful source than people realize. Besides the hymns there are many prayers and brief readings from important Christian historical figures. These are scattered throughout the hymnal. 

Second is the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). There are many different formats in a variety of price ranges. This is the Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church. I wish we had something like it in the UMC. Our Book of Worship is a resource for pastors but not at all like the BCP. 

Third is The Rule of St. Benedict. Benedict invented The Daily Office in the sixth century A.D.  The book is brief, written for monks, not for people like us, but it is important for us as the foundation of The Daily Office. 

 

Finally, I want to ask for your prayers for Drew Church. Drew is the adult son of blog readers Kin and Vicki Church from First United Methodist in North Wilkesboro. He spent nearly a week in Intensive Care and is still in Forsyth Hospital in Winston-Salem suffering from problems in internal organs. He has been in much pain.

 

God of all our joy and all our suffering,

We pray for the full recovery of Drew Church.  Draw us all closer together in prayer, as disparate as we are in place. Help us to experience more deeply our unity through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen

 

Faithfully

Christian