Taking Worship Seriously by Worship Curator Mark Pierson

This morning’s post comes from our good friend Mark Pierson, who has been a worship curator for more than 15 years. Mark Pierson blogs athttp://www.clayfirecurator.org. He is author of the recent book The Art of Curating Worship. ____________________________________________________________________________ It worries me that we don’t take corporate public worship seriously enough. I’m referring to those who plan [...]

Is Believing in A Better World Idealism?

Yesterday I posted this prayer on facebook: ‎”Jesus may we see in you the ways of life, May we love justice, show mercy, practice generosity, And love our neighbours as we do ourselves.” Someone called these lofty but admirable goals.  One a similar post several months ago someone else called it admirable idealism and another [...]

A response to What is Worship – Ron Skylstad

Today’s post comes from Ron Skylstad  from the Grunewald Guild.  It was first posted yesterday on the Guild blog Scriptorium    _______________________________________________________________ Yesterday Christine Sine posted some thoughts on her blog in a post entitled“What is Worship?” In it she talks about a blog series she hosted over the summer about worshipping God in the real world…and [...]

What is Worship?

I hosted a blog series over the summer on worshipping God in the real world.  To be honest I was a little disappointed with the response  Most of the posts were about traditional spiritual practices like praying and singing hymns in the midst of everyday life.  Now don’t get me wrong, I think that these [...]

Expressive Arts Therapy as a tool for prayer meditation by Kim Balke

This morning’s post comes from Kim Balke, an expressive arts therapist in British Columbia I was looking at this drawing the other day and I asked myself, just where did this image come from?  I invite you to do a little digging with me in my prayer garden using a few tools that I have [...]

Using Icons – a Powerful Tool or Graven Images

Icons are an integral part of orthodox worship and serve a variety of functions: (1) They enhance the beauty of a church. (2) They instruct us in matters pertaining to the Christian faith. (3) They remind us of this faith. (4) They lift us up to the prototypes which they symbolize, to a higher level [...]

Life in a two-beat rhythm – by Lynne Baab

The posts for Worshipping God in the Real World have been few and far between lately.  Hmm I wonder if that is a symptom of something?  But more of that later.  Today we have another post from Lynne Baab the author of the recently released Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World, as well as numerous [...]

A moment beside the Willamette River

The posts in my series Worshipping God in the Real World have been few and far between these last couple of weeks – too many people off enjoying a break with no time to write.  However I did receive this from Lynne Baab which makes a great addition to the previous posts. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Lynne M. [...]

Worshipping God in the Real World – Dumpster Diving for Food Justice

This morning I came across an article on Grist magazine entitled Dumpster Diver Says Trader Joe’s Must Start Wasting Food All in all, Americans throw out a whopping one-half of the food we produce and import. This wastefulness coexists with a devastating recession and record numbers of Americans dependent on food stamps—one in eight of [...]

Worshipping God in the Real World – Dodging Forks and Other Parenting Highlights by Penny Carothers

Today’s post in the series Worshipping God in the Real World is contributed by Penny Carothers.  Penny is the Social Justice Editor for the Burnside Writers Collective.  In between washing diapers and trying to make her kids laugh she is working on a book chronicling her mother’s descent into mental illness, some of which you can [...]