This last year at St. Matthew for National Day of Prayer, one of the things we did (in addition to 3 prayer services that day) was have prayer stations set up for private prayer time. At each station the pray-er was to focus on one specific type of prayer for several minutes before moving on to the next station and the next type of prayer. I was blown away by the effect of it on me.

I really had intended on giving more time to BLOGGING on prayer this summer while we journey through the Lord's Prayer in our weekend messages

Good thing there's forgiveness, huh?

But here's something that has kept coming up as it relates to prayer that I've been trying to keep in my prayer life.

leaving more time for silence

Authored by my 5 year old daughter, Ellie. Should speak for itself :)

(you may need to go here to see the full size version)

we're talking about prayer in worship right now in the hopes that we at St. Matt would deepen our prayer lives.

So I think that as I get back into the swing of blogging, I'm gonna share little tidbits about what God is doing in my prayer life. Maybe it will help you as you grow in your own prayer life too.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming to be some prayer guru... I need to grow in this as much as anyone.

After an intense season of wrestling with God's plans for me, St. Matthew, and this series of calling churches, I'm pleased to announce that this season is coming to an end.

I really like what I just read. I was sent an incredible commentary by Bishop TD Jakes on the negative press the church has been getting in the last few weeks. In it, he provides a captivating picture of how he has seen the church through his own experience. If you can ignore the political endorsement and look at the vision he gives for the church, I invite you to read it by going here

In Luke 15:8-10 we hear a remarkable proclamation. It says that the angels in heaven rejoice when one wayward person experiences a "turn-about" and is brought to God.

That's not an isolated passage either, in fact Luke makes the same point in his Gospel two other times in this chapter. There is rejoicing in heaven when a "lost" person is found.

Modern outreach-oriented churches have latched on to passages like these as rallying cries to motivate their congregations to grow. But I wonder if we haven't distorted the message of Luke 15 a bit.

Rick Warren's bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life asked the question, "what on earth am I here for?" It obviously got a lot of attention.

Maybe I'm odd in feeling like I have a good sense of what I'm on earth to do as an individual. Where it gets confusing, frustrating, and even depressing for me is when I try to figure out what we're meant to do together as a collective of people called "the church."

I'm reposting a (slightly modified) blog entry that I wrote a LONG time ago. Not because I'm busy with Holy Week and don't have any fresh ideas (well at least that's not the BIGGEST reason) but because I think that the greatest threat to us this week, that seeks to keep us from experiencing the beauty of Jesus' sacrifice is spelled out here below. The more I see America and the church within her, the more I believe that this will be our downfall. May we lay this sin down before God so that we don't miss the magnitude of what he's done for us, especially this week.

This post was inspired by a conversation over on our community website, regarding something I said on The Six Podcast this week.

It all made me think about the idea of redemption.