Light in the Darkness Fasting and Prayer – Week Two

December 10, 2017

This Sunday, we continued our annual Light in the Darkness season. This is our name for the historical practice of Advent, when our days get darker just as we are preparing for Christmas. It’s an opportunity to come to terms with the days of declining sunlight and the impending winter, as well as our own limits and struggles and hunger and need. At the same time, it’s a season to celebrate the light of Jesus with us and to hope for more of Jesus, and more light and joy and life and peace in our present and our future.

One way that followers of Jesus over the centuries have waited and hoped during this season has been through fasting and prayer. Consider taking one day, or even one meal, a week from now through Christmas – it’s just two weeks away! – to skip your food and to reflect and pray instead. It’s a way of acknowledging our hunger and need for God and for letting our bodies and minds stop and pay attention.

Whether you fast or not, here’s a way you can pray for Reservoir Church and for your world this week.

For our church: This week, a few of us will interview several candidates for our Director of Worship and Arts. We’ve looked for musicians who can lead worship – drawing from historical and contemporary and gospel traditions, support artists and arts programming, and develop and promote other leaders. Pray for that we find and hire someone who will help our bands and congregation experience God together, while promoting a flourishing of the arts and creativity and beauty both at Reservoir and in our city more broadly.

For our world: In times of tension and injustice and insecurity, the arts can provoke questions, challenge the status quo, and stir us to hope and wonder. The arts can also evoke wonder, stirring us toward faith and hope in God and a deeper and truer humanity. Pray for all that visual and performing artists in our Reservoir community, that God provides for them and sustains their work. Pray for our city and world more broadly, that God would raise up the artists our times need and help us all to stop and pay attention. Pray that our city and our earth would be full of worship and wonder in this Christmas season.