Donald Miller at the DNC

Nice prayer Donald!! Specificly Christian yet respectiful and inclusive; prophetic yet non-partisan; justice-oriented, global in scope, Biblical, confessional, and challenging to all gathered. I think he could have prayed this at the RNC. Well done! It's worth reading over on his site.

mexico prayers

It is impossible to capture all that God did in and through our team while in Mexico City but I want to share with you a some thoughts i had after an amazingly exhausting day working in Zapote Ariba.

I felt like i was a part of the life of Jesus/story of the church in Acts. We gathered together to eat pray, worship, sit under the Word and fellowship and then like the 70 sent out by Jesus we we went out to proclaim: good news to the poor; freedom for the prisoners; recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19). As we gathered in the center of the village with teachers, doctors, pastors, nurses, children from Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Ahuatitla, speaking English, Spanish and Nauat. Some sorted medicine, preparing to see patients others dispersed into the village while I stayed behind to preach from Mark 2, in English, and then translated into Spanish and then into Nauat. After that our tri-lingual team offered pray for the sick and broken-hearted. We listened to stories of incredible physical and spiritual pain and oppression. We prayed together in the unity of the Spirit even though we never spoke in the same language. We saw God's power and authority in very tangible ways - people were healed, principalities and powers were battled, tears were shed, hearts were mended and the kingdom of God was advanced all through PRAYER in the Spirit. Not the normal way I do ministry. I saw and felt the power of God go out through me and the others in our prayer team. I saw hands used to bring healing to other people's bodies and spirits. I heard discernment and insight into the lives of people that could have only been given by God. By mid-day I was completely depleted, exhausted and amazed. I experientially understood why Jesus often withdrew to a quiet place and connect with his Father - replenishing power, strength and wisdom. There were people waiting in line to meet with the doctors and nurses and to be prayed for. My spirit was weak and in need of renewal. The work that God had prepared me to do I had never done before (praying for people for 4 hours straight) and after lunch we headed back for more miraculous work of God healing peoples bodies, minds and spirits through us, his wounded healers on their knees.

How am I translating this back into the USAmerican world that, to quote Nacho Libre, "has it's faith in science?" I believe that we need to learn about the power of prayer and the reality of the spiritual world. We modernistic USAmerican Christians tend to live in our minds, depend on rationality, human ingenuity, the scientific method, technological development, medicine, and what we can explain. I certainly believe that God is in the technological advances of science and medicine to heal can be used for his glory. I do not want to create a dualism of body and spirit, mind and emotion or prayer and science - God is in all and sovereign over all. But it seems to me that more faith in humanity's ability to progressively heal through technological advancement than in God himself. God is pushing me and prodding me to trust him more, to ask more boldly in prayer and believe that God can and will break in through his Spirit to bring healing to his world.

• If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
• ...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
• And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.
• Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make them well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Lord help us to pray!

yogi missiologilist

I love my wife for many reasons and most recently (the past year or so) because she teaches me what it means to do and be be a good missiologist. She is a yoga instructor and has been working hard and wrestling to integrate her her faith in Christ into her work and the world of yoga which is predominantly New Age in the West and Hindu and Buddhist and the East.

This past Sunday she taught our community on the surrender of Mary and offered 2 prayer stations that related yoga postures and surrender to God. She is wise sensitive and brilliant at what she does and I am thankful for her witness to me and others in her passion in following in the way of Jesus.

Check it out or better yet try it out.

Here are some suggested poses that may help us get our bodies into a posture of surrender.

Corpse pose: lying on your back, focus on your breathing for 2 minutes: breathing in and out, becoming aware of the breath expanding your ribs and belly. With each exhale, surrender to gravity, feeling the heaviness grow in your muscles as gravity pulls you to the earth. Ponder these questions as you rest, imagining yourself in the palms of God; surrounded by His glory, love and grace all at the same time. Ask Him to help you trust Him; to stay in His palms and rest in His love.

Child’s pose: Getting on all four’s (knees and hands), sink your hips back toward your heels as if curling into a ball. Bring your hands along side your legs. Rest your forehead to a block or to the mat. Take 2 minutes to focus on your breath. Allow deep breaths to fill your whole torso – front and back ribs. Breath into your lower back, imagining your breath surrounding your kidneys and sides of your body. Ponder what it means to be a child of God. Mary was just a child…given such big responsibility in carrying God’s Son. What is He saying to you? Is He telling you to participate in the coming of His Kingdom in some way? Does this seem overwhelming?...challenging?...scary? Are you willing to surrender into His palms, trusting Him to accomplish His will through you?

prayer as a fulcrom

I wrote this during my two days of solitude/retreat last week. It is not one of my best but here it is. It was inspired by a phrase in Eugene Peterson's book Where Your Treasure Is: Psalms That Summon You from Self to Community

Prayer

The stone hefty and huge
immovable, inflexible, impenetrable
for centuries and generations
just there
people and nations
children, parents, and grandparents
all
seeking and striving to
move it, destroy it,
for it is...
obtrusive and intrusive
an impediment
to progress and production
committees formed
strategies laid
technologies invented
days, weeks, months, and years
have past
sweat, blood and tears
flowed like rivers
still...
immovable, inflexible, impenetrable
obtrusive and intrusive

one day a young boy comes upon this stone
he stands still
watching...
listening...
discerning...
awareness deepening...
simultaneously...
a group of men are laboring
muscles bulging,
perspiration profusely pouring
and the b o a r d is b e n d i n g
the men stretching and groaning
lifting and laboring
arguing and fighting
striving to catapult this stone
out of their way

amidst all the sweating, striving and strife
the boy sees...
a simple small stone
insignificant in comparison
to the obtuse obtrusion
he... quietly and unassumingly
sticks the simple, small, stone under the board
fashioning a fulcrum
silently slips

amidst pushing shoving, shouting
one man falls on the board –
the stone is lifted
SILENCE!!!!
suddenly the stone is removed
burdens are bursting
celebrations commence
progress promoted
enemies erased
all by a simple, small, silent
point of leverage

Howard Thurman - praxis prayer

I am reading Howard Thurman's Meditations of the Heart for an Advent devotional. I read Jesus of the Disinherited in seminary and was really impacted by the book. Thurman (1899-1981) was the co-founder of the first inter-racially pastored, intercultural church in the US. He was a mentor and significant influence on the life and ministry of MLK Jr; and in my opinion he is dreadfully under-read by most Christians; for he is an amazingly insightful theologian, mystic and social critique who was way ahead of his time. I am continually struck by how similar African American/Black theology is to the theology emerging from emergent folks. Why is it then that more African Americans are not engaged in the emerging church conversation? For some great insight into this questions check Anthony Smith's blog, and his chapter, Practicing Pentecost in Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Anyway my main reason for writing is to share with you a section of Howard Thurman on prayer that is typical of African American theology. It is a model of what I will call, praxis prayer which is holistic, active and rooted in a Hebraic understanding of knowing - that if you know, you act and if you do not act then maybe you do not really know; knowledge cannot be separated from action. Thurman, reflectively outlines the natural movement of ones prayer to God which he says ends in the...

"...sharing of one's desires and hopes for others, and one's sense of need which the whole human family shares - the need for peace, for health, for justice and for decency...one must share with God in the whole task of redeeming human life. It is never quite sufficient to place all the needs of mankind before God and leave them there. The efficacy of prayer is often measured by the degree to which the individual is willing to become involved in actually working in the world to meet these needs. A man may share his prayer concern fore peace in the world and yet in his own little world, be unwilling to change his private attitude of antagonism or prejudice toward his fellows."

May we be willing to participate in the activity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the world - which may be the answer to our own prayers and the prayers of others!!!!

new year prayer

i was sent this great prayer by my friend marlena. we are praying it as a communal benediction over the next few weeks in our worship gathering. try it on for size.

Father God,
enable us,
by your grace and empowerment,
to become . . .
expanders of life,
scatterers of laughter,
singers of songs,
makers of peace,
spreaders of good news,
healers of wounds,
tellers of truth,
practitioners of mercy,
sharers of joy,
weavers of community,
walkers in humility,
fulfillers of your dreams for us
spun in Jesus, our brother and Lord. Amen.

(from My Heart in My Mouth: Prayers for our Lives by Ted Loder)