CRC SOW | Refugee Songs, Immigrants Creeds, Lord's Prayer

Exodus painting by Shin Maeng

Still In Awe
of Proskuneo's Multicultural Worship
and the Immigrants Apostles' Creed
by Rev. Jose Luis Casal
at the CRC's Symposium on Worship
Years Later 

Going to the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship's Symposium on Worship, hosted by Emmaus City's denomination in Grand Rapids  January 25-27, 2018 was a seminal moment for me as a minister.

It was an absolute privilege

and joy to worship with
and learn from 1,500+ people
from 30+ countries and 40+ denominations,
and the ripple effects
from this refreshing drop of time
with God's people across culture,
ethnicity, and tradition
continues to impact me today.

While my expectations were high in light of Urban Doxology, Sandra McCracken, 
The Porter's Gate Worship Project 
and more participating, 
the symposium far exceeded my hopes. 

Not even half way through my two days participating in the three-day symposium, I was floored spiritually and emotionally by the wonders of worship displayed through services of the Word; liturgies; seminars on worship in light of suffering, redemption, injustice, vocation, persecuted people groups, indigenous people groups, Church history, sacramental life, mental and physical handicaps, etc.; vespers; and more.

Crying before God
with Proskuneo and
sisters and brothers from
Syria, Sudan, Korea, Myanmar,
China, and more

While there is much more I could write, for now I'm providing this post based on a vesper with Proskuneo, a multicultural worship team I had not heard of until that night. Jaewoo Kim from Korea led us alongside Fadi Alsayar from Syria, Abraham Deng from Sudan, and others from Myanmar, the U.S., and China. Check out Proskuneo's YouTube Channel for examples of their team leading worship-in-song together.

The vesper focused on Psalm 137:4: "How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?" as Proskuneo's dynamic team led us through a liturgy involving Scripture, stories, and songs focused on conflict, loss, displacement, and the song of the LORD in a foreign land.

I'm getting emotional again just thinking about it again years later. The 45 minutes with these beautiful people was so raw and so full of awe. I still can't give them or the time with them justice on multiple levels. But I can share the order of worship, a few key links to Scriptures and songs, and The Immigrants Apostles' Creed by Rev. Jose Luis Casal we recited together to close the service. 

Songs of the Refugees Vesper:
How shall we sing the LORD's song
in a foreign land? 
+ Psalm 137:4

 | 1 | 

CONFLICT

Scripture: 

Psalm 137:1-4 in Arabic, Burmese, and English  

Narration: 

Story of persecution for faith  

Song: 

"I Have Decided to Follow Jesus"

 | 2 | 

LOSS

Narration: 

Story of a refugee 

Song:  

"Elahi Yesua," 

Arabic song by Manal Samir  

Prayer: 

For those suffering loss 

and grieving our own loss

 | 3 | 

DISPLACEMENT

 

Narration:  

Story of a refugee 

Song: "Hold on Strong," 

South Sudanese song by Abraham Deng 

Scripture:  

Philippians 3:20 

in Korean, Arabic, and English 

 

 | 4 | 

SONG OF THE LORD
IN A FOREIGN LAND

Narration:  

Story of a refugee 

Scripture:  

Jeremiah 29:7 

Song:  

"Always Thankful," 

Arabic song by Fawaz Amaish   

Song:  

"Blessed Assurance" 

by Fanny Crosby 

King of all nations painting by Shin Maeng

The Immigrants Apostles’ Creed

Adapted from Rev. Jose Luis Casal’s
update of The Apostles’ Creed,
2nd Century A.D. 

I believe in God the Father almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, 

who guided His people
in exile and in exodus, 

the God of Joseph in Egypt,
Daniel in Babylon, Esther in Persia. 

I believe in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, our Lord, 

conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary, 

immigrant of heaven
and displaced Galilean on earth, 

who was raised under occupation
and fled as a refugee with His parents
when His life was in danger.

When He returned to His own people, 

He suffered under the imperial power 

and oppression of Pontius Pilate, 

and was unjustly crucified
by the empire, dead, and buried. 

He descended to hell. 

On the third day He rose again,
not as a scorned foreigner, 

but as the King victorious,
ascended to heaven and 

empowered to offer us citizenship
in God’s eternal Kingdom. 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 

the eternal immigrant
from God's Kingdom among us, 

who speaks all languages,
lives in all countries, 

and reunites all races. 

I believe in the holy catholic Church
that is the secure home
for the foreigner among believers
across time and in every nationality. 

I believe in the communion of the saints
that is revealed 

when we embrace all of God’s people
in our diversity in unity. 

I believe in the forgiveness of sins, 

which makes us all equal
before God at the cross, 

and in His reconciliation,
which heals our brokenness and 

identifies us together more
than race, language, or tribe. 

I believe in the resurrection of the body
when God will unite us
as one people
in which all are distinct
and alike at the same time. 

I believe in life everlasting
in which no one will be a foreigner 

but all of God’s people
will be citizens of the Kingdom of heaven 

when Jesus Christ reigns forever and ever.
Amen.

The Latin American Lord's Prayer

Credit to Numerous Sources

God who is in us here on earth,
holy is Your name

in the hungry who share
their bread and their song.

Your Kingdom come, 

which is a land flowing
with milk and honey.

Let us do Your will,
raising our voice when all are silent.

You are giving us our daily bread

in the song of the bird
and the miracle of the corn.

Forgive us for keeping silent
in the face of injustice.

Don't let us fall into the temptation of 

taking up the same arms as the enemy.

But deliver us from evil.

Give us the perseverance
to look for love, even if we fail;

so shall we have known Your Kingdom 

which is being built forever and ever.

Amen.

The Immigrants Nicene Creed

Adapted from St Albans Diocese’s 
update of The Nicene Creed, 325 A.D.
and Rev. Jose Luis Casal’s update of 
The Apostles’ Creed, 390 A.D.

We believe in God,
the Father, the Almighty,

Maker of a heaven and earth
without borders or nations,

who led His people from slavery to freedom

through exile and exodus,

the God of homelands lost and found,

the God of temple and desert,
of manna and sacrifice.

We believe in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, our Lord,

incarnate from the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary,

immigrant of heaven
and displaced Galilean on earth,

who was born under occupation
and fled as a refugee with His parents 

when His life was in danger.

When He returned to His own people,

He suffered under the imperial power
and oppression of Pontius Pilate, 

and was unjustly crucified
by the empire, dead, and buried.

On the third day He rose again,
not as a scorned foreigner, 

but as the King,
opening for us the door to new life and

destroying the power of death 

that denied us our birthright
as citizens of God’s Kingdom.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and Giver of life, and

the eternal immigrant
from God's Kingdom among us, 

who speaks all languages,
lives in all countries, and reunites all races,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son, 

unity in diversity, three-in-one.

We believe in one holy catholic
and apostolic Church,

the communion of saints
across countries and centuries,

made equal by our need for repentance 

and our assurance of God’s mercy,

united by our citizenship identity by baptism 

in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,

We look for the coming of the Kingdom of God,

where our passport is Christ’s love,

our bodies are resurrected and healed,

the image of God in all of us is honored,

and all nations and tribes and people
will be reconciled in the place

where there is no mourning or sadness,
no exile or despair, and

we will be no longer strangers or guests,

but family gathered safely together
in the arms of our Father and

united at the table of Christ our King.

Amen.

For more examples for how to bring to light, lament, and worship in light of our immigrant and refugee sisters and brothers' plight, check out Emmaus City's denomination's additional helpful sites:

+ CRC Justice Worship Resources  

+ Reformed Worship: 

God's Eye Is on the Refugee: 

A Simple Drama, a Powerful Message  

 

 Bonus Posts:

+ Les Mis: Do We Still Love Them?  

+ Tattoos on the Heart

Soli Jesu gloria.

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Our Father | Reflections on The Lord's Prayer by Pope Francis

How to Pray the Lord's Prayer (Our Father Prayer) on Hallow App

"I hope that in saying the Our Father,
every one of us will feel more loved,
forgiven,
bathed in the dew of the Holy Spirit,
and will thus be able in turn to love 

and forgive every other brother,
every other sister.
This will give us an idea
of what heaven is like."

+ Pope Francis 

The Lord's Prayer
is an abridgement of the entire Gospel.
+ Tertullian, early 200s A.D.

There may never have been
another prayer written
that was not already contained
in the Pater
("Our Father" or "Lord's Prayer").
+ Simone Weil

The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.
+ Marcel Proust

Pray to the Father

Father. Without saying this word, without taking it to heart, we cannot pray. To whom do I pray? Almighty God? Too far away. I cannot feel that he is near. Even Jesus did not refer to God as "the Almighty God." Father. We have to pray to the Father! He is the one who accompanies us on our journey. He knows our whole lives, the good and the not-so-good. If we do not begin our prayer with this word, spoken not with our lips but with our hearts, we cannot pray as Christians. We have a Father who is close to us, one who embraces us. All of these anxieties, all of the worries we may have, let us leave them to the Father. He knows what we need. And he is our Father! 

I am not an only child; none of us is. And if I cannot be a brother, it will be hard for me to truly be a son of this Father. If I am not at peace with my brothers and sisters, I cannot say "Father" to him. Acceptance is not easy. But Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit. he is the one who teaches us, from the inside, from the heart, how to say "Father" and how to say "our." Let us then as the Holy Spirit to teach us to say "Father" and to be able to say "our," thus making peace with our enemies. Jesus shows us what it means to be loved by the Father and reveals to us that the Father wants to pour forth upon us the same love that he has for his Son from all eternity.

Our Father

The Our Father gives me a sense of security. I do not feel uprooted; I do not have the sense of being an orphan. I have a father, a "dad," who brings me a history, shows me how things work, takes care of me, and leads me forward. He is also a dad before whom I always feel like a child, because he is great, he is God, and Jesus asked this of us, to feel like children. God offers the security of a father, but a father who accompanies you, waits for you. 

I think that today the world has somewhat lost the meaning of fatherhood. It is a world sick with orphanism. Particularly in Western culture, the figure of the father is seen as being symbolically absent, vanished, removed. At first this absence was perceived as a form of liberation – liberation from the father-master, from the father as representative of a law that is imposed from the outside, from the father as censor of children's happiness and obstacle to the emancipation and autonomy of young adults. But now the problem in our day no longer seems to be that of the intrusive presence of fathers, but rather of their absence, their desertion. Fathers are sometimes so focused on themselves and their work, and occasionally on their individual fulfillment, that they forget their families. And they leave both younger and older children to themselves. Therefore, it would be good for everyone, for fathers and children, to listen again to the promise that Jesus made to his disciples: "I will not leave you orphans" (John 14:18). It is he, in fact, who is the Way to be traveled, the Teacher to be heeded, the Hope that the world can change, that love overcomes hatred, that there can be a future of fraternity and peace for all.

Who Art in Heaven

Perhaps one of the beautiful things
about our faith
is that it is not man
who goes in search for God,
but it is God
who sets out in search of man. 

"Heaven" means the greatness of God, his omnipotence. He is the first, he is great, and he is the one who has made us. "Heaven" represents the immensity of his power, of his love, of his beauty. Nevertheless, let us think about the God of Abraham, who draws near to him and says, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1). Keep looking up, move forward, believe, hope, and do not give up. God is very close.

A good father knows how to wait and knows how to forgive sincerely. Of course, he also knows how to give firm correction. He is not a weak father, a pushover, sentimental. The father who knows how to correct without discouraging is the same one who knows how to protect without sparing himself. Without the grace that comes from the Father who is in heaven, fathers lose courage and abandon the field. However, children need to find a father who is waiting for them when they return from their failures. 

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Psalm 131 says, "I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul." This is one of the many ways to hallow God's name: to feel like a child in his hands. 

God's name is mercy ... 
It is the wisdom of the simple
who know they have a father
who is always waiting for them.
God is not waiting for you
to knock at his door;
it is he who knocks at yours,
unsettling your heart.
He is waiting for you first.

I like to say it in Spanish:
Dios nos primera. 
He makes the first move.
God makes the first move.
This is mercy.

There are two requests that Jesus associates with the title Father: "hallowed by thy name" and "Thy kingdom come" (Luke 11:2). The prayer of Jesus, and therefore Christian prayer, is first a matter of making room for God, allowing him to manifest his holiness in us, and also advancing his kingdom through the possibility of exercising his lordship of love in our lives. 

Thy Kingdom Come

The kingdom of God is here and the kingdom of God will come. It is the treasure hidden in the field; it is the precious pearl for the sake of which the merchant sells all he has (Matthew 13:44-46). The kingdom of God is the good wheat that grows alongside the weeds, and you have to fight against the weeds (Matthew 13:24, 40). The kingdom of God is also hope; the kingdom of God is coming now but at the same time has not yet come completely. This is how the kingdom of God has already come: Jesus has taken flesh, he has become man like us, he walks with us, and he gives us hope for our tomorrow: "I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

The kingdom of God
is something that belongs to us,
or rather, it is better
to think of it another way:
we must allow ourselves
to be possessed by the certainty
that it has come.
That is true Christian faith.

But at the same time
there is also the need
to cast the anchor there
and to hold on to the cord
because the Kingdom is still coming. 

"The protagonist of history is the beggar."
Perhaps Peguy said it.
The protagonist of history is the beggar,
but not only the material beggar
but ourselves too, spiritual beggars.
May your kingdom come, Lord,
because without you we can do nothing. 

To say "thy kingdom come"
 is to be a beggar.

Our feeble work may appear small
in the face of the complexity
of the world's problems,
but if embedded within God's work
it has no fear of the difficulties.

The Lord's victory is assured:
his love will cause to sprout
and grow every seed of goodness
present on the earth.
This opens us up to trust and hope,
in spite of the tragedy, injustice, 

the suffering that we encounter.
The seed of justice and peace
sprouts and develops
because it is ripened
by the merciful love of God.

Thy Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven

Perhaps there is an echo of what the world says today: "There you have it: the usual passivity of Christians; they accept everything that comes." In reality, I would dare say that doing the will of God is almost the opposite. It means making room for a God who permeates us, who draws us to himself. Jorge Luis Borges wrote: "In the cracks is God, who lies in wait."

For us there is a salvation history made of yeses and nos. At times, however, we are experts in the "half yes." We are great at pretending that we do not really understand what God wants and what conscience suggests to us. We even get crafty about it, and in order to avoid actually saying "no" to God we say, "Excuse me, I can't," " Not today, maybe tomorrow," "Tomorrow I'll be better, tomorrow I'll pray, I'll do good, tomorrow." These attitudes and decisions distance us from the "yes." They distance us from God and lead us to the "no," to the "no" of sin, to the "no" of mediocrity. All of this leads to closing the door on goodness.

Evil takes advantage
of the withheld "yes."
If we think about it,
we will find many
of these withheld yeses.

Instead, every full "yes" to God
gives rise to a new history.
Sin makes us old inside.
It ages us fast!
But saying "yes" to God
is literally original.
Let us keep in mind what "yes"
we should say to God today.

We will find within us
the voice of the Lord,
who is asking us for something,
a step forward.
We all need to say,
"I believe in you, I hope in you,
I love you;
may your will for good
be fulfilled in me."
This is the "yes."

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

All of this, in the kingdom of God as recounted to us in the Gospel, happens while we are seated at table. Jesus uses this image often. The kingdom of God is always a celebration; we are at table, so he gives us something to eat. Whether it is a special occasion or an everyday meal, we are at table. The power of God's presence in the world today is precisely at table, in the Eucharist with Jesus. This is why we ask that he feed all of us. Feed us with that spiritual food that strengthens us, at table in the Eucharist, but also feed everyone, in this world in which the reign of hunger is so cruel. When we pray the Our Father, it would be good for us to linger a bit over this petition – "give us bread today," to me and to all – and to think about how many people do not have this bread. 

Always someone is hungry and thirsty and needs me. I cannot delegate this to anyone else. This poor person needs me, my help, my words, my efforts. We are all in this together. This is also the teaching of the Gospel in which Jesus, seeing the many people who have been following him for hours, ask his disciples, "How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" (John 6:5). And the disciples responded, "It is impossible, it would be better for you to send them away. ... " Instead, Jesus says, "You give them something to eat (Mark 6:37). Jesus has them give him the few loaves and fish that they have with them, blesses them, breaks them, and has them distributed to all. This is a very important lesson for us. It tells us that the little we have, if we entrust it to the hands of Jesus and share it with faith, becomes an overflowing treasure. Pope Benedict XVI, in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, affirms, "Feed the hungry is an ethical imperative for the universal Church. ... The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights. ... It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination" (no. 27). Let us not forget the words of Jesus: "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35) and "If any one thirst let him come to me and drink" (John 7:37). These words are a challenge for all of us believers, a challenge to recognize that feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty are a conduit of our relationship with God, a God who has revealed in Jesus his face of mercy.

And Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

You will be able to forgive if you have had the grace of feeling forgiven. Once, when I felt that the Lord had forgiven me of so many things, I wept with joy. Still today, when I think back on how I wept and it is my turn to forgive, I say to myself, "There's no comparison; this is a small thing compared with the time God showed you great mercy."

The family is a big training gym for the mutual giving and forgiveness without which no love can last for long. Without giving of oneself and without forgiving one another, love does not last; it does not endure. One cannot live without forgiveness – or at least, one cannot live well, especially in the family. Every day we do wrong to one another. We have to take stock of these mistakes, due to our frailty and our selfishness. But what is asked of us is to heal right away the woulds that we cause, to repair immediately the threads that we break in the family. If we wait too long it becomes too difficult. And there is a simple secret for healing wounds and dispelling accusations. It is this: do not let the day end without apologizing, without making peace between husband and wife, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters ... between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law! If we learn to apologize right away and to forgive one another, then wounds heal, marriages become stronger, and the family becomes an ever more solid house, one that withstands the impacts of our wrongdoings large and small. And this is why there is no need to make a big speech. A caress is enough. One caress and everything is over; it is time to move on. But never end the day at war! If we learn to live like this in the family, we will do the same outside of it, wherever we find ourselves. It is easy to be skeptical about this. Many – even among Christians – think that this is an exaggeration. "Yes," they say, "those are beautiful words, but it is impossible to put them into practice." But thanks to God, that is not the case.

In fact, it is precisely in 

receiving forgiveness from God 

that we in turn
are capable of forgiving others. 

This is why Jesus has us repeat
these words every time
we recite the prayer 

of the Our Father, every day. 

And it is indispensable that, 

in a society that is merciless at times, 

there should be places, like the family, 

where we can learn to forgive one another. 

And Lead Us Not Into Temptation

This, "lead us not into temptation," is not a good translation. In fact, if we open the Gospel in the latest edition of the Italian episcopal conference, we read, "do not abandon us to temptation." The French have also changed the text, with a translation that means "Do not let me fall into temptation." I am the one who falls. It is not God who tosses into temptation in order to see how I fall. A father does not do this. A father helps his child get up right away. The one who leads us into temptation is Satan. That is Satan's craft. The meaning of our prayer is, "When Satan leads me into temptation, please God, give me a hand, give me your hand."

In a prison parish
the biggest temptation
with which Satan tries to seduce
the heart every morning
is to whisper, "Give up. 

Your imprisonment
doesn't change anything;
it's all a waste of time."
To despair, for me,
means to stop
looking at the face of Christ. 

It is also true, however, that when I am tempted I realize how much grace God has given me in my heart. Perhaps I would not have become aware of this if I had not been tempted. Where I come from, they always say that no on can boast of being chaste if he has never been tempted.

But Deliver Us from Evil

The Our Father concludes with, "But deliver us from evil." And at the juvenile prison on the island of Nisida, across from Naples, one young man gave me the gift of a touch confidence. "There is only one thing I repeat under the covers before I go to sleep at night: 'Lord, deliver me from evil." Hearing a sixteen-year-old say this made me aware of the real concreteness of evil. There is evil. Evil is not something intangible that spreads like the fog of Milan. Evil is a person, Satan, who is very cunning. The Lord tells us that when Satan is driven out he goes away, but after a certain time, when one is distracted, perhaps after several years, he comes back worse than before.

How did Jesus act with Satan? He drove him away, or, as he did in the desert, he used the Word of God. Not even Jesus ever began a dialogue with Satan, because if we start to dialogue with him we are lost. He is more intelligent than we humans are. He turns us upside down and makes our head spin. In the end we must say, "Be gone, be gone!" In the end, in fact, evil will be removed and eliminated. At the time of the harvest, meaning the judgment, the reapers will carry out the master's orders, separating the weeds in order to burn them (Matthew 13:30). On that day of the final harvest the judge will be Jesus, he who sowed the good wheat in the world and himself became a "grain of wheat," died and rose again.

The Lord's Prayer

As Simone Weil noted,
there may never have been
another prayer written
that was not already contained
in the Pater.

I am always amazed
by those timorous words
that the priest always speaks
before intoning the prayer:

"Obedient to the word of the Lord
and instructed by his divine teaching,
we dare to say."

That "we dare to say"
is wonderful, almost on tiptoe,
in hushed tones.
It is as if only together
could we find the courage
to say "Father."
Christianity cannot exist in solitude.

We do need courage to pray the Our Father. We need courage. What I say is this: we must humble ourselves into saying "Daddy" and to truly believing that God is the Father who accompanies us, forgives us, gives us bread, is attentive to all we ask, clothes us even better than the flowers of the field. To believe is a big risk. We fear. What if this all is not true? To dare, to dare, but we must do this together. This is why praying together is so beautiful, because we help one another to dare.

Excerpts from
Our Father: Reflections on the Lord's Prayer
by Pope Francis

More Posts on Lord's Prayer:

Praying Good News of Lord's Prayer  

+ N.T. Wright 

The Grandest Prayer of All  

+ Dallas Willard 

Ethical Implications of Lord's Prayer  

+ Anna Case-Winters

Soli Jesu gloria.

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Lent | Re-Learning How to Receive & Bless thru Jesus' Prayer

Notice that the prayer
that Jesus taught His disciples
seems to relate to five basic themes
of the human experience:

(1) identity: Who am I?
(2) purpose: Why am I here?
(3) security: How will I survive & thrive?
(4) community: How can I belong?
(5) freedom and peace:
How can I overcome
my temptations & suffering?

+ Mark Scandrette
Practicing the Way of Jesus

A Vision for Life in the Kingdom of Love

Do you think it's possible that Jesus may have taught His disciples to pray in relation to identity + purpose + security + community + freedom and peace because of the vision it gives for the life we were made for? 

Here is a picture of life that we get from the instructions of Jesus:

Identity 
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed by Your name." 

Our Creator is present and caring. Who are we? We are intimately loved by a Creator who is closer than our very breath. We are not alone and we have not been abandoned. We are beloved and cared for simply because we are God's children. We don't have to earn, beg or appease God. We may have called another "Mother" or "Father," and they were a gift to reveal a glimpse of our true parent and our real home in the eternal Abba. We were created for intimate union with our eternal parent, sourcing our life from God's life. Nothing else can ultimately satisfy us. In faith we surrender to Jesus as our Savior and Teacher, trusting that the one who made us always has our best interests in mind. This is why we are invited to live and pray the words "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name." An apprentice to Jesus learns to find their primary identity in communion with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Purpose
"Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven."

We were created to serve the higher purposes and healing heart of the eternal God. Why are we here? Look! All around us the Creator is at work liberating and restoring what is broken and inviting all people to return to their source. You and I were made to find our deepest joy and greatest satisfaction not from doing whatever we want, but in surrender to the Creator's desire and imagination. As Jesus said, we are the light this world needs (Matthew 5:14-16). We are agents of God's healing, justice and love – especially for the poor and weak and those who suffer. We don't have to be concerned about becoming the greatest or getting credit. The Father sees and knows the good work we do to serve in love. We can ask for God's reign to come to every place and person in our path and expect to see freedom multiplied. This is why we are invited to pray and live the words "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." An apprentice to Jesus learns to make the realization of God's creative and restoring work their highest priority.

Security
"Give us today our daily bread."

God's abundance supplies everything we need. How will we survive and thrive? We are sustained through the Creator's abundance. Our Maker delights in giving us what we ask for. We don't have to be greedy because the resources we need will always be provided. We can share what we have and what we receive. We don't have to worry or be afraid of anything, including the future or what will happen to us after we die. We don't have to be jealous of people who hoard things, thinking that we live only by what we can see. Knowing where true provision comes from, we are free to live generously with content and grateful hearts. This is why we are invited to live and pray the words " Give us today our daily bread." An apprentice of Jesus learns to rely on the resources the Creator provides.

Community
"Forgive us our trespasses | debts | sins,
as we also have forgiven our debtors."

Access to an infinite source of love can transform our relationships with one another. How can we belong? We are infinitely loved, having received an eternal source of love to share with others. We are forgiven by God, and are empowered to forgive whenever we are wronged. Broken relationships can be restored. We can live at peace with one another. Love frees us to live without anger, bitterness, lust or judgment. We can be authentic and honest with each other and keep our promises. We can love and bless the people who take advantage of us or even hate us – because love wins over all. This is why we are invited to live and pray the words "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." An apprentice of Jesus learns to love as we are loved.

Freedom and peace
"Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one."

We can have victory over temptations and peace in suffering. What can we do about our temptations and sufferings? Be awake to God's presence and power here with us. We have the strength to overcome any obstacle. We don't have to be dominated by our feelings or impulses or the tyranny of rules and regulations. When we are weary, tired, stressed or sad we don't have to give in to habits or compulsions that we are destructive. We can overcome any temptation and endure any difficulty. Grace will meet us in the moment of our greatest weakness. We can have peace when we suffer. Nothing that happens can separate us from the eternal source of love. This is why we are invited to live and pray the words "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." An apprentice of Jesus learns to practice self-denial and endure the difficulties that come from living in a divided world. 

One step toward experiencing
life in the Kingdom

is to pray for a vision

for what is possible

and to want what is possible.

It might help to speak these intentions:

I want to taste the intimacy

of being God's beloved child.

I want to collaborate

with God's creative and redemptive

work in the world.

I want to live without

worry, jealousy or lust.

I want to forgive and love

as I have been forgiven and loved.

I want to experience victory

over the temptations I struggle with

and feel God's peace when I suffer.

Faith Practice
Pray the Our Father + Lord's Prayer
for Someone 

If the Our Father | Lord's Prayer provides a summary of the life we have been created for, praying this prayer for another person can be a powerful way to train and express our desires for life in the Kingdom. 

Pray with someone through the phases of the Our Father | Lord's Prayer, working to personalize the words to fit their situation. For example, "God, you are ______'s true parent. Help ______ embrace their identity as Your beloved child, learning to be constantly aware of Your presence in each moment of this day."

Our Father in heaven

God, how do You want this person

to know the assurance
of Your love today?

Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done
God, what will it look like
for Your Kingdom to be revealed
in this person’s life today?

Give us today our daily bread
God, what specific provision
are You pouring out on this person today?

Forgive us as we also have forgiven
God, what are Your words of grace
to this person today?

Lead us not into temptation
What is the right path
You have laid out for this person
to walk today?

Deliver us from the evil one
How can I pray Your protection
over this person today?

Learn more about the Lord's Prayer:

+ Praying the Good News

by N.T. Wright 

 

+ What Heaven Is Like

by Pope Francis

 

+ Ethical Implications

by Anna Case-Winters 

 

+ Bold Missionary Focus

by John F. Smed 

 

+ Prodigal Comes Home 

by Wesley Hill

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

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