Category: Prayer

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14August
2020

Forward Day by Day

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2020, Adult Formation, News, Prayer
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The Forward Day by Day podcast is available on all streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

We also offer other podcasts to center you in prayer:
A Morning at the Office: includes all three readings as well as bonus prayers.
An Evening at Prayer: Daily Evening Prayer according to The Book of Common Prayer
Daily Prayer: includes two readings and follows the same text as our app and website.
ChurchNext: discussions on a variety of topics in the Episcopal and Christian scope.
The Good Book Club Podcast: regular church-wide readings of selected books of the Bible.

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14August
2020

d365 – devotionals 365 days a year – especially for students

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2020, News, Pray, Prayer
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  • pause
  • listen
  • think
  • pray
  • go

A Recognizable God

May 11, 2020

 

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16June
2020

Habits of Grace

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2020, Coronavirus, News, Prayer, Presiding Bishop, racism, truth and reconciliation
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Habits of Grace, June 16, 2020: An invitation for you, from Presiding Bishop Curry
[June 16, 2020] As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted each week.These meditations can be watched at any time by clicking here.
June 16, 2020: In this month of June
Watch the Video
During this month of June, we find ourselves in the midst of great titanic struggles, hardships, and difficulties. When important things are at stake, when the lives of God’s children, and the life of the world in many respects is at stake. Even as I speak, protestors march through our streets, protesting the way we have been. Protesting for the way we could be. Black Lives Matter, protesting in our city streets that we might learn to live the ways of justice, and mercy that reflects the heart of God’s love. And even as I speak, this month of June is Pride Month when our LGBTQ siblings remember and recall, and continue their struggle for equality and mutual respect, and human dignity in our society, in our church and throughout the world.

And even as I speak, the COVID-19 pandemic continues in strange and unanticipated ways, but it continues. This is the month of June. These are some hard times. Hard times for all, but really hard times for so many. Sometimes it’s helpful to go back and look how others navigated hard times. I went and picked up a small book. There’s a book of sermons by Harry Emerson Fosdick. It was published in the mid 1940s, in 1944 I believe. It was a collection of sermons that he preached as the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, during the Second World War when the entire world was in an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil. One of the sermons he titled, “In such a time as this, no dry-as-dust religion will do.”

He pleaded with people of God to draw closer to God for strength and energy. To live lives of love, of faith, of hope. In that same period of time, he composed the hymn that’s found in many of our hymnals, and I would offer it for us this week in this month of June.

God of grace and God of glory,
on thy people pour thy power;
crown thy ancient churches’ story,
bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
for the facing of this hour . . .

Save us from weak resignation
to the evils we deplore;
let the gift of thy salvation
be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
serving thee whom we adore.

(Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930)

God love you. God bless you. May God hold us all in those Almighty hands of love.

Reference: “No Dry as Dust Religion Will Do,” A Great Time to Be Alive: Sermons on Christianity in War Time, Harpers & Brothers, 1944
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06June
2020

Habits of Grace

church1750
2020, Coronavirus, News, Prayer, Presiding Bishop
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Habits of Grace, June 5, 2020: An invitation for you, from Presiding Bishop Curry
[June 5, 2020] As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new meditation will be posted each week through June. These meditations can be watched at any time by clicking here.

June 5, 2020: For Quiet Confidence
Watch the Video
I had intended to do our Habits of Grace earlier this week on Monday or Tuesday, as I usually do, and then so many things began to happen, both in our country and in our wider world that I wasn’t able to get to it.

In the midst of all that was going on, there were a few moments when so much was happening so fast and it was so chaotic, that at one point, I was on a Zoom call with a member of our staff and we were working on videos and interviews and it was so much and so chaotic, I remember just saying, “Let’s just stop, and pray.”

And the prayer I prayed was a prayer from our prayer book. It’s toward the end of the prayer book on page 832 called “For Quiet Confidence”. This prayer is based on a time in the life of the prophet Isaiah, when the people of Judah and Jerusalem were living in a time when their country was in turmoil and things were uncertain and chaos seemed to be ruling.

The prophet Isaiah said, “You must remember that it is in returning and rest, that you will be saved; in quietness and confidence, you will find your strength.” And this is the prayer we prayed and I offer it for all of us. Let us pray:

Oh, God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and in rest, we shall be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength. By the might of thy Spirit, lift us, we pray thee to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

God love you and keep the faith.
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