Dear people of God:

In the abundance of material I’ve received and read with advice about “opening” the church, one theme keeps coming through that has me a bit sheepish. Whenever the writer talks about what people of the Church can do, it says something along the lines of “Continue saying your daily prayers at home.” That has convicted me, because I have never given you any sort of guidance on saying daily prayers at home.

I certainly cannot do that justice in a brief column on website & Facebook, but I can share some thoughts. It would be good to do a video chat about that sometime, if you’re interested. But I do have one suggestion to start with, right now: the Presbyterian Church’s own resources for daily prayer.

Personally, I like holding books, so I use the “Daily Prayer” edition of the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (2018). It is easy to use, has readings for morning & evening every day, and a wonderful variety of prayers to follow the calendar or for particular occasions. There are four services for every day: morning, midday, evening, and night; I do morning and night every day, and evening from time to time. But you can always select from them the portions you want to do. They work well for individuals or for families or groups.

Those who enjoy electronic resources can get the same thing on an app for smartphone or tablet. On the Apple App Store, I see that 25 users have rated it 3.5 out of 5; not bad. You can read more about it on the Presbyterian Church’s website: https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/worship/daily-prayer/

The strength of the community at worship and mission depends on the prayerful life of the individuals in that community. I apologize that I have not said anything about this before now, but I hope to work on rectifying that in the future!

Pastor Bob

During the COVID-19 restrictions, I am posting special messages from time to time. This one is from May 29, 2020.