It’s a world of confusion, Lord:
we are muddled in our thinking;
we are mixed in our emotions;
we are inconsistent in our actions.

It’s a world of lies, Lord:
we deceive ourselves about our motives and intentions;
we mislead others with double-speak and spin;
we exploit you as an agent of social control and repression.

It’s a world of greed, Lord:
we worship the idol of the market;
we honour the false prophets of profit;
we reduce people to punters and nations to debt.

It’s a world of violence, Lord:
we deploy the technology of terror to protect our own interests;
we invest our children in the business of bloodshed;
we justify war as first strike, last resort, or final solution.

It’s a world of vengeance, Lord:
we allow the wounds of history to fester;
we refuse the healing of memories;
we betray the living out of mistaken loyalty to the dead.

Oh Lord,
in this world of confusion, make us a people of clarity;
in this world of lies, make us a people of integrity;
in this world of greed, make us a people of generosity;
in this world of violence, make us a people of peace;
in this world of vengeance, make us a people of mercy:
in the name of Christ: Amen.

- Kim Fabricius

“Dear Heavenly Father, while I am on this journey through life, I pray that I may always listen for your voice, whether it is for praise or discipline. Please, please may I always know your presence, especially if I am to journey through life’s valleys. When I am weak fill me with your strength, and help me to love like you love, even when it hurts. May nothing matter to me more than becoming the person you want me to be. Amen.”

– Dianne Parsons (1949 –  )

“Lord God, fill us with your Holy Spirit, baptise us in your love and send us in your strength to minister Christ to those we meet. Give us great confidence in the message of the gospel, open doors of opportunity for us and enable us with courage and sensitivity to speak of Jesus. Heavenly Father, we long that the prayer of Jesus may be answered in our lives; ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ Send us afresh with his sense of commission and his heart of compassion. Use us, even today, to bring someone to you. Amen.”

– Victor Jack (1937-  )

“O Lord, who has warned us that you will require much of those to whom much is given; grant that we whose lot is cast in so godly a heritage may strive together the more abundantly by prayer, by almsgiving, by fasting, and by every other appointed means, to extend to others what we so richly enjoy; and as we have entered into the labors of other men, so to labor that in their turn other men may enter into ours, to the fulfillment of your holy will, and our own everlasting salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

– Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

“Grant us grace, our Father, to do our work this day as workmen who need not be ashamed. Give us the spirit of diligence and honest enquiry in our quest for the truth, the spirit of charity in all of our dealings with our fellows, and the spirit of gaiety, courage, and a quiet mind in facing all tasks and responsibilities.”

– Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

“Our heavenly Father, we commend to your mercy those for whom life does not spell freedom: prisoners of conscience, the homeless and the handicapped, the sick in body and mind, the elderly who are confined to their homes, those who are enslaved by their passions, and those who are addicted to drugs. Grant that, whatever their outward circumstances, they may find inward freedom, through him who proclaimed release to captives, Jesus Christ our Savior.”

– John Stott

Gracious and Holy Father,
give us wisdom to perceive You,
intelligence to understand You,
diligence to seek You,
patience to wait for You,
eyes to behold You,
hearts to meditate upon You,
and a life to proclaim You,
through the power of the Holy Spirit of Christ our Lord.

– Benedict of Nursia (480-547)

“Today, O Lord — let me put others before self; let me put things of the Spirit before the things of the body; let me put the attainment of noble ends before the enjoyment of present pleasures; let me put principle above reputation; and let me put you before all else.” 

– John Baillie (1886-1960)

“Father, you know and I know I can’t do anything — so show me what you are doing and draw me into that.”

– John Wimber (1934-1997)

“Grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would encourage us to think sin less serious, vice more attractive, or virtue less important; grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would dethrone Jesus Christ from the topmost place.” — William Barclay (1907-1978)

William Barclay on prayer:

“Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God’s voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.”

“Lord, may my desires change to your desires. Lord, if a desire is good and profitable, give me grace to fulfil it to your glory. But if it be hurtful and injurious to my soul’s health, then remove it from my mind.”
 

– Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)

“Grant us, Lord, we beseech you, your grace. Pity the poor, encourage those who are sick, enlighten those whose spirits are in darkness, heal the sick, guide the confused, feed the hungry, release those who are unjustly imprisoned, support the weak, comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the nations of the world know that you are God, that Jesus Christ is your child, and that we are your people.

- Clement of Rome (c. 96)

“Most merciful God, order my day so that I may know what you want me to do, and then help me do it. Let me not be elated by success or depressed by failure. I want only to take pleasure in what pleases you, and only to grieve at what displeases you.

For the sake of your love I would willingly forgo all temporal comforts. May all the joys in which you have no part weary me. May all the work which you do not prompt be tedious to me. Let my thoughts frequently turn to you, that I may be obedient to you without complaint, patient without dejection, and serious without solemnity. Let me hold you in awe without feeling terrified of you, and let me be an example to others without any trace of pride.”

- Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)

Do you ever desire to set aside more time for prayer?  Maybe even a whole day dedicated to listening and discovering what God is saying? But perhaps you haven’t been certain on how to best organize such a day. Or maybe you thought it would be helpful to participate with like minded people in such an endeavor.

If this is the case in your spiritual journey, then we hope you can join us for a one day guided prayer retreat on Thursday, June 4th here in Kansas City. We will be meeting from 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Tall Oaks Conference Center. Tall Oaks is located in Linwood, KS half way between Kansas City and Lawrence. For a map and directions to Tall Oaks you can go here. 

Our prayer “guide” for the day will be Dr. Liam Atchison. Liam has been a seminary professor and church planting pastor, and is an historian and teacher. He and his wife Precious co-authored a book called Grief, published by NavPress. Liam is a graduate of Kansas State University, where he received his PhD in the history of hermeneutics, and Dallas Theological Seminary, where he received a Master of Theology. He was founding editor of the Christian cultural journal Mars Hill Review and has written a number of articles on history and on spiritual growth. He is the founder of Emmanuel House, a graduate theological study center in Manhattan, KS and Lincoln, NE that emphasizes knowing God and knowing ourselves as a theological basis for becoming effective readers of the biblical text, people, and culture.

Liam directed the biblical counseling program at Colorado Christian University in the halcyon days of the 1990s, where Dr. Larry Crabb was both a colleague and mentor. Liam went on to be a founder and the academic dean at Western Conservative Baptist Seminary’s Seattle (Now Mars Hill Graduate School) campus, before founding Emmanuel House in 2002. He was the ancient history teacher at K-State from 2005 to 2008, when he was nominated for Professor of the Year by his undergraduate students (he didn’t win, but what was cool was that the national professor of the year won!). A coffee snob from his years in the Pacific Northwest, Liam sees baseball as a spiritual exercise, loves telling stories, and seriously, seriously bleeds purple.

The cost of the one day retreat will be a very reasonable $15 (which even includes lunch!). If you are interested in joining us or have questions please leave a comment or email me at brad.brisco@gmail.com

Hope you can join us on June 4th.

“We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

– President Abraham Lincoln, 1863

I have been reading a wonderful little book on prayer by Stanley Grenz that rarely gets much attention, but I think it should. It was first published in 1988 and revised in 2005, the same year Grenz died from a massive brain hemorrhage. Here are a couple of excerpts.

“In short, prayer is a crying to God for help, based on an awareness of dependence on God. It is the cry for the kingdom voiced by persons who realize that only the in-breaking of God’s reign can remedy the challenging situations that we face. E.M. Bounds aptly comments:

Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need. It is the voice of a beggar, conscious of his poverty, asking of another the things he needs . . . Not to pray is not only to declare that there is nothing needed, but to admit to a non-realization of that need.

Viewed in this light, prayer resembles faith. Like faith, petition is merely opening our empty hand so that we might received God’s provision. But we must take this connection a step further. Prayer not only expresses the dependence connected to faith; it is also a declaration that we do indeed believe that God is both willing and able to act.

This suggest that a significant relationship also exists between God’s action and human faith. The New Testament repeatedly reminds us that God will not act unless human begins believe that God can do so. Or, to state the point in another way, the New Testament declares that faith brings results (e.g. , James 1:6-8; Luke 7:50; Matt. 9:29; 13:58; 17:20; 21:21). And one meaningful expression of faith in God is petitionary prayer. . . .

Because of its connection to the coming of the kingdom, prayer brings results. As we pray, we are able to perceive the presence of the kingdom in all areas of life. As we pray, we become the instruments of the Spirit in opening the situations we face to receive the in-breaking of God’s rule in the present. And through prayer, we move history toward that day when the kingdom will arrive in its fullness and God’s work in the world will reach its final goal.”

– Stanley Grenz, Prayer: The Cry For The Kingdom

These two readings from Celtic Daily Prayer really spoke to me this morning:

“Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.”
Psalm 112:4-5

“And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:10-11

In a post I did several months ago titled “Missional: More Than a Buzz Word” I shared three theological distinctions that I believe are necessary to bring clarity and explanation to the use of the word “missional.” In addition I discussed five practical issues that I think can help to foster a missional posture in the life of the church.

The first of these practical issues involves an emphasis on spiritual formation. If the church is going to develop the passion, strength, and discernment to live as a sent, Spirit-filled community then there must be a strong focus on spiritual formation. We need learn to see  where God is working in our communities and discern  how He desires for us to participate.  

Part of this discernment process I believe involves developing a “rhythm” that puts us in a place to hear from God regularly. More and more people are recognizing the absolute need of some sort of rhythm of life that is marked by daily moments of prayer, solitude, worship, and study. 

If you have ever struggled with cultivating such a rhythm with your daily activities, let me suggest checking out Missional Order. Over the past few weeks there have been several posts that have encouraged and challenged me in multiple ways. Here are a few of the posts that have recently spoke to me:

Be There
Dance of Prayer
Midday Slowdown
Present to the Present
The Rhythm of Real Life
Do You Hear What God Says?
Solitude, Community, Ministry
A Sacred Rhythm of Continual Conversion

My friend Georges Boujakly reminds us from Celtic Daily Prayer that hurry isn’t helpful for anyone.

Hurry is an unpleasant thing in itself, but also very unpleasant for whoever is around it. Some people came into my room and rushed in an rushed out and even when they were there they were not there–they were in the moment ahead or the moment behind. Some people who came in just for a moment were all there, completely in that moment.

Live from day to day, just from day to day. If you do so, you worry less and live more richly. If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly in those moments.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Celtic Daily Prayer

O Lord, I place myself in Your hands and dedicate myself to You. I pledge myself to do Your will in all things:

To love the Lord God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength.

Not to kill, not to steal, not to covet, not to bear false witness, to honor all persons.

Not to do to another what I should not want done to myself.

To love fasting. To relieve the poor.
To clothe the naked. To visit the sick.

To bury the dead. To help those in trouble.
To console the sorrowing. To hold myself aloof from worldly ways.
To prefer nothing to the love of Christ. Read the rest of this entry