So... I wrote this Prayer Book

            Being a Scandinavian American I’m not big on self-promotion… in fact I have a tendency to see it as a little icky. But here it goes.

            As you may remember a couple years back I wrote a book entitled “An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope and Other Essays on the Binding of Isaac.” It is my M.Phil. thesis about retellings of Genesis 22 by Josephus, Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Jubilees, along with a pseudo-Freudian reading of the story, a discussion about how Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac relates to religious violence, and a science fiction play that re-interprets Genesis 22.

            Well, I’ve done it again. After three years of wrestling with prayer—especially finding resources to deepen my prayer life—Hurricane Sandy hit. I was without power and my gas tank was empty. Well, when I wasn’t out wandering the neighborhood checking on parishioners, I started to compile prayer resources I’d used, to think through how to fit them all into one book, and to think through how that book would be organized and useful.

            And out of that exercise, and about a year later, a year filled with using and sharing that resource, comes Read, Reflect, Pray: A Lutheran Prayer Book.

            It is a cross between Doberstein’s A Minister’s Prayer Book and Lathrop’s Holy etc’s along with some nods to the Black Church and Forde.

            The basic idea behind this book is that the things we do in worship ought to be done throughout our lives.

            Or as I wrote in the blurb for the prayer book, “Imagine becoming a group of people who focus their lives on being community, fostering forgiveness, reflecting on their vocations in light of God’s love for us declared in our Baptism, rooting themselves in God’s Word, cultivating a thankful heart, sharing Christ’s grace at table, and being people sent into the world to be salt and light. That’s the shape of our communal worship, our collective practice of being who we are, the body of Christ. And that’s the shape of this prayer book as well.”

            So check out Read, Reflect, Pray. It is available in soft-cover and on Kindle.

Peace,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger Chris