Prayer Blog

In February my Santa Clarita church added a new element to our liturgy: a spoken prayer at the end of our prayer and meditation time. This section of the service now consists of a guided meditation that leads us into silence, then a ritual of worshippers dropping stones in a bowl on the altar table to represent their personal joys and sorrows and how those personal events are collected in the life of our congregation and our shared faith. if anyone has a joy or sorrow they would like shared with the congregation they can write that out on cards we provide and hand it to me as they come to the altar. Then I read the cards out loud and then invite everyone to pray with me as I read a prayer I've written for the day.

I've also invited church members to write prayers using their own preferred language and some weeks I'll step aside and let one of them lead the prayer. Then we close with a hymn and move on to the sermon and the rest of the service.

I've started posting my prayers on a separate blog. I'll be adding one or two a month as I write them.