“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

Dear Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to seek reward, save that of knowing that I do your will.

– Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

Matthew 5:43-48

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Closing Prayer

Lord, help us to love our enemies in both words and deeds. Help us to embody your loving, forgiving presence in our neighborhood—especially among those who resist the Gospel, especially to those who hate your name.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Week 1: Saturday Evening

The past couple of weeks I have been utilizing The Missio Dei Breviary as my daily prayer guide. I have thoroughly enjoyed this simple yet substantial collection of prayers and Gospel readings.

My favorite aspect of the Breviary is the missional emphasis woven through each of the morning and evening collections. Click here to learn more. Here is a sample from Week 3: Sunday Evening:  

The Jesus Manifesto

With Jesus, we proclaim:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Father, anoint us with your Spirit. As you sent your Son, your Son has sent us; may we embody the presence of your Son in the world, and in our neighborhood. Empower us to live and proclaim your good news in our neighborhood, and in the world.

Sovereign God, everything we have belongs to you. May we use what we have to bless others and woo people into the Kingdom, rather than for our own comfort and ease. Bless us so that we may bless others. If we do not bless others, take our resources from us and give them to those who will bless others.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- Closing Prayer from Week 2: Friday Morning, The Missio Dei Breviary

Let me not, when this morning prayer is said, think my worship ended and spend the day in forgetfulness of You. Rather from these moments of quietness let light go forth, and joy, and power, that will remain with me through all the hours of the day;

Keeping me chaste in thought:
Keeping me temperate and truthful in speech:
Keeping me faithful and diligent in my work:
Keeping me humble in my estimation of myself:
Keeping me honourable and generous in dealings with others:
Keeping me loyal to every memory of the past:
Keeping me mindful of my eternal destiny as a child of Yours.

This is a prayer from Francis of Assisi that was a part of the missional images post from several months ago. I was reminded of this prayer during this season of thanksgiving.

Lord make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith.
Where is despair, let me give hope.
Where there is darkness, let me give light.
Where there is sadness, let me give joy.
Grant that I may not try to be comforted, but to comfort;
not try to be understood, but to understand; not try to be loved, but to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive, in forgiving that we are forgiven,
and in dying that we are born to eternal life.

- Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

O Christ Jesus,
when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness,
give us the sense of Your presence, Your love, and Your strength.
Help us to have perfect trust in Your protecting love
and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us,
for living close to You, we shall see Your hand, Your purpose,
Your will through all things.

- St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

(HT: One for the Road)