Tag: fasting and prayer

December 18, 2017

We have entered the final week of 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.

Yesterday, Steve spoke about the incarnation – our understanding that in Jesus, God has become one of us, taking on a body and knowing first-hand the full range of human experience, from birth through death and beyond. As Steve shared some of his own journey finding Jesus in pain and grief, he invited us to grieve and lament if we need to, but also to open up each room of our lives to Jesus, and to welcome his presence and his new life and hope he will birth there.

One way that followers of Jesus over the centuries have welcomed Jesus and waited for JEsus 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: We are stretching ourselves financially in 2018 to hire a director of communication and growth. The goal is to provide leadership to our efforts to connect with our non-churchgoing neighbors in Cambridge, Somerville, and surrounding communities and to offer potent spiritual direction in a secular world. Pray that we hire the right person for the position and that God leads us into effective communication and relationships in the year to come and beyond, helping more people in our city connect with Jesus in ways that promote their flourishing.

For our world: For the good news of Jesus to be incarnate to each of us to all people that are looking for God. Specifically, ask Jesus to be incarnate through those of us who love and follow Jesus, and wait for him and celebrate his birth this Christmas.

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.

This Sunday, we began 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.

This past Sunday, at Reservoir, we listened to the Christmas story told in five parts. An actor in our community, Holly Schaff, told us the story of the prophets, the holy family, the shepherds, the magi, and the light of Christ, using the Godly Play curriculum we use in our kids’ church programming. We also considered what it means for us to find ourselves in this story, to stop and pay attention, to be weary and to wait, to find less fear and more joy, and to hope.

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 three weeks! – 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 January, Lydia Shiu will join us as a new pastor – helping new people integrate into the life of the church as members, community organizing, coming alongside people in our community with conversation and love and prayer, and doing all the other things a pastor does. She and her new husband Eugene are moving across the country to join us, after a fall of travels in East Asia and for Eugene, a temporary work assignment in Singapore. Pray for God’s peace and help for them in their move and in their acclimation to a new city, in the middle of a Boston winter! Pray for great housing, great friends, a great welcome from Reservoir, and for years of fruitful ministry in our city for Lydia.

For our world: Our city and cities throughout the world are full of young adults asking powerful existential questions about meaning and mattering and relationships in their lives. And many are finding that their family systems and careers and religious traditions aren’t addressing these questions as powerfully as sometimes other generations felt they did. Pray for spiritual homes, for pastoral care and guidance, and for courage and love and wisdom for our current and future young adults as they make their way in the world.

“For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9:6