Tag: chapel

A Prayer for Difference amidst Unity, and Unity amidst Difference

Gordon's Beyond Colorblind logo
Gordon’s Beyond Colorblind logo

Does race matter? Is ethnicity important? How do cultural backgrounds affect our everyday lives?

This week at Gordon College we have a special emphasis week, BEYOND COLORBLIND:

BEYOND COLORBLIND is a focus week to help start new conversations about race and culture on campus.  We hope the lectures and discussions help us consider how our racial and cultural identities and experiences shape our views of ourselves, others, and God.

You can watch the first large group session of the week (chapel) here. Richard Twiss was the main speaker. It’s well worth your time.

Two weeks ago I shared a prayer for the first day of school. Today I’m sharing the congregational prayer we prayed in unison this morning in chapel. This came after the passing of the peace.

God, lover of all people,
Creator of all nations,
We praise you for all that you have made.

Thank you for the rich mosaic that is the body of Christ.
Thank you for difference amidst unity,
for unity amidst difference.

Give us a spirit of understanding and appreciation of each other.
Help us to see your image clearly in those around us.

Bless us now as we gather,
and may we declare your praises with our whole lives,
through our risen Lord Jesus.
Amen.

Find out more about the week here.

A prayer for the first day of school

2012 to 2013
 
This semester is the first day of classes at Gordon. This morning in chapel I led us in a responsive prayer, offering thanksgiving and petition to God at the start of a new semester. I offered the prayer in italics, then we all as one congregation read the bold responses.

For the start of a new semester and all the promise that it holds:

We give you thanks, our God.

For the joy we have in seeing friends for the first time in a month:

We give you thanks, our God.

For those with whom we live in dorms, apartments, and houses:

We give you thanks, our God.

For the chance to gather freely in worship:

We give you thanks, our God.

For all that we will learn: in the classroom, in this worship space, in Lane, in labs, in practice rooms, in the library, in relationships, on campus and off campus:

We give you thanks, our God.

For wisdom for all students, staff, and faculty, as we seek to offer God our very best in all that we do:

Lord, please be near us.

For family relationships that we’ve invested in over the last month but now step away from in some ways:

Lord, please be near us.

For perseverance and diligence in our studies:

Lord, please be near us.

For healthy sleep patterns, motivation to exercise, self-control in eating good, healthy foods:

Lord, please be near us.

For those areas of life in which we struggle, where we despair, and for those things of which we are ashamed:

Lord, please be near us.

How shall we sing hymns?

John WesleyJohn Wesley (1703-1791) was an Anglican minister and theologian. His ministry (and that of his brother Charles Wesley) led to the creation of the Methodist Church, as well as other traditions that have their roots in Wesley: the Wesleyan holiness movement, Pentecostalism, and the Charismatic movement.

Wesley issued seven “Rules for Singing” in 1761. Here are some excerpts:

Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. …If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.

Sing…with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength…. (AKJ: This is particular pertinent for those services that take place in the morning hours.)

Sing in time. Whatever time is sung, be sure to keep with it. Do not run before, not stay behind it; but attend closely to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can;

And take care you sing not too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from among us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.

WesleyHymn tempo can be largely a subjective decision–some like it fast, some like it slow. But might singing “all our tunes just as quick” encourage more hearty singing? It seems Wesley thought so.

Regarding the call to “attend closely to the leading voices,” I find it particularly helpful when worshiping congregations have vocal leaders for hymns, especially if members of the congregation are not familiar with a given hymn. This may sound self-evident, but the majority of my hymn-singing experience has been in churches where the organist leads the hymn just from the organ. This works fine in a congregation that knows hymns and sings them well, but I’m not convinced it’s always the  best approach to leading congregational hymns in worship.

Here’s my favorite part of Wesley’s rules:

Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. …[S]ee that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually.

I don’t think having “your heart… carried away with the sound” is mutually exclusive with offering it “to God continually,” but I love Wesley’s call to “have an eye to God in every word you sing.” We sing hymns best when we make them prayers to God, affirmations of our faith, even heartfelt confessions.

The rules in their entirety are here.

Day of Prayer

Here’s part of a writeup I did on our Day of Prayer that took place last week:

In the evening we worshiped again as one in the chapel with a congregational expression of the Psalms through song. From a lone voice in the darkness expressing the cries of the Psalmist in Psalm 130, to voices in unison reading the Psalms of Ascent; from hymns to contemporary music to bluegrass; from a Taizé chorus to Gospel music led by the Gospel Choir, we raised our voices in prayer and praise together, using the words of the Psalms.

The whole post is here, at Notes Along the Way, the blog of Gordon College.

Rocks cry out on the Day of Prayer

What a great way spend a day this Tuesday! We had our annual Day of Prayer at Gordon College. (Here is the schedule of events for the day.)

As I wrote before, I’m struck by how the Day of Prayer is a microcosm of an important aspect the school’s life together: we are one and we are many. There are more than 40 denominations and Christian traditions represented at Gordon. On the Day of Prayer we prayed as one body—lived out in the morning and evening services in the chapel—and we prayed in diverse ways (for example, in the Orthodox tradition, through hymns, in the Catholic tradition, by reading Psalms together around a fire pit, in the dark, with artistic expressions, through dancers leading worship, a Gospel Choir, and more).

The picture above (via a Gordon student) is of a rock cairn that the students added to throughout the day. Students, faculty, and staff wrote prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving on a rock, which they then placed next to the entrance of the chapel. Watching the rocks pile up throughout the day, as praises going up to God, was a highlight for me. These rocks cry out!

See student response to Day of Prayer (with pictures) via the Twitter hashtag #GCDayofPrayer.

SEEK: Day of Prayer

Tomorrow (Tuesday) at Gordon College is the Day of Prayer. Here is the schedule for the day. We’ve been working hard in preparation for this day, and I’m excited now that it’s here at last.

Day of Prayer at Gordon is a dedicated day–no classes or regularly scheduled events–where we remind ourselves of who we are in Christ: a body of believers that can join together in prayer to give God praise and request his continued provision in our lives and in the world.

I’m struck by how the Day of Prayer is a microcosm of an important aspect the school’s life together: we are one and we are many. There are more than 40 denominations and Christian traditions represented at Gordon. On the Day of Prayer we pray as one body—lived out in the morning and evening services in the chapel—and we pray in diverse ways (for example, in the Orthodox tradition, through hymns, in the Catholic tradition, by reading Psalms together around a fire pit, in the dark, with artistic expressions, and so on).

Philosophers talk about the problem of “the one and the many.”  At Gordon, we get to experience the blessing in Christ of being one and many.

You can follow Day of Prayer via the Twitter hashtag #GCDayofPrayer. (Gordon College on Twitter is @GordonCollege.) Read the Day of Prayer press release here.