From the Pastor: What a Month!

Dear Peace family,

Lois and I had an absolutely amazing trip last month—the longest we’ve ever been gone, and certainly the most exotic trip we’ve taken. We rushed out of town right after school was out (and after Choir Sunday!), and flew to London, where we spent a week visiting family and friends and sightseeing a bit. (We couldn’t bear to be that close to Johanna without seeing her, so she flew up to London from Slovakia for the weekend. What a treat!)

We had never been in London, and of course you can hardly scratch the surface in a week’s visit. We worshiped at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Sunday, attended a concert at the famous St. Martin in the Fields, and got absolutely drawn in to the new Churchill museum—what a fascinating man!

Then we flew to Prague, where we had booked a Danube river cruise (a belated 25^th anniversary present to ourselves!). For you geography buffs, no, Prague is not on the Danube, it’s just where the tour started. Prague is a fascinating city, made even more fun by the large screen set up in the city square on which was projected whatever World Cup soccer game was happening that day. They do love their soccer!

The cruise embarked at Nuremburg and took us to Regensburg, Vienna, Bratislava (where Johanna again met us for dinner on the boat, and we celebrated my birthday), and Budapest (a bunch of other places along the way, too).

Peace to you,

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Classic Prayers

My God, I believe and am fully persuaded that you live and reign in me. Rule over all my interior tendencies and exterior movements, so that I may not be master of any of them. Since you, O God, have established your reign within me, it is your right to direct all of these movements.

--John Baptist de la Salle (1631-1719)

Liturgy Notes: The prayers of the Church

Thus is worded the invitation given to the congregation each week to offer their intercessions to God. Intercession—praying for others—has been part of the Christian liturgy since at least the 2^nd century, when Christian writer Tertullian described his congregation “besieging God with prayers, like an army in battle formation.”

During the middle ages, the role of the congregation in offering prayer declined, and prayer became seen more as the prerogative of the clergy. The Reformation concept of the “priesthood of all believers” restored the congregation’s active participation in offering intercessions during worship.

Over the centuries, the nature and style of this kind of prayer has varied. In Lutheranism for a time, a “General Prayer” was popular, in which the pastor might lead the congregation in prayer with few specifics. Prayer might be made for “the sick,” but without mentioning names. Another model is the “Bidding Prayer,” in which the leader names particular persons or categories of persons I need of prayer, and then invites the congregation to pray silently for them. Still another is “Free Prayer,” in which any person moved to do so might offer a prayer.

Perhaps the most common form of intercessory prayer in Lutheran worship today is the “Responsive Prayer,” where the leader speaks very specific intercessions, and the congregation responds by saying “hear us, Lord,” or “hear our prayer.” This is the style we’ve usually used here at Peace.

Praying for others is important, but there’s more. Note that the prayers are closely connected with the offertory. In a sense, one might say that our prayers—expressions of our concern and love for others—are part of what we “offer” to God. We even use that word when we speak of “offering our prayers.” It is a dramatic way of saying that the concerns we have as Christian people are offered to God, and that they are every bit as important as the money we place in the offering plate. Just as our monetary offering represents our time and our labor, so our prayers represent the deepest desires and concerns of our hearts.

The prayers also have the vital function of drawing us out of ourselves and into an understanding of the wider nature of the church. Luther Reed put it this way: “In rising above small, local, and selfish considerations, the Prayer of the Church reveals the true mind of the church.” We pray, in other words, not just for our own selfish needs, but for the needs of all.

Luther himself was big on the importance of this: “We must take to heart the needs of all people and pray for them in real sympathy and in true faith and trust. Oh, if any congregation were to pray in this way, so that a common earnest, heartfelt cry of the whole people were to rise up to God, what immeasurable virtue and help would result from such a prayer!” And so we pray, not just for our congregation, but for the church in Rwanda or Slovakia, for peace in the Middle East, for our missionaries, for our public servants, and for all manner of people.

The trend in recent liturgical reform has been to involve lay people in preparing and leading the prayers of the church. Are there some in our congregation who would like to be involved in this process? If you’d be interested in exploring such a ministry, speak to one of the pastors.