Exploring Intentionality in 2009!

One of the things we hope to do in 2009 is to explore ways to become more intentional about our individual and communal spiritual lives. We want to engage the desire and the goal of growing closer to God and growing our faith. Towards that goal we have started discussing "weekly graces" on Sunday mornings, that are a special focus for our prayers and activities for the coming week.

April's Weekly Graces:

Week of April 26th...  I am passing along the Concerns from Sunday's  Prayers of the People  for this week's exercise... During the service we had an opportunity to write down a prayer request on an index card and then another opportunity for folks to take those requests and spend special time with them throughout the week. If you picked up a card, then please honor in the week. We didn't, however, have as many cards as people, and many folks were out of worship for various reasons, and so I'd like to encourage you, if you don't have a card, to choose something from the list below as a special focus for the week. In fact, it would be a good thing to find an index card and write it down so you can carry it in a pocket and be reminded of it.

• Lizzy is competing today in State finals for Tumbling and Trampoline, and could go on to Nationals
• Also, a couple of our ladies, Margaret and Amanda are both under the weather and feeling bad
• Shannon asks us to pray for her homeless friend called "The Rev" who is always asking her to be sure and remember him in her prayers
• Greg has a friend who's 2 1/2 year old son swallowed his mother's wedding ring, and they're really hoping it will pass and they can avoid surgery to remove it
• Melanie is asking for prayers for her mom and the various stresses she is under and sharing with the family
• Howertine Farrell Duncan has been recently diagnosed with Lukemia
• LaShel has asked us to pray for Jerry, a 1st Grader who has been recently diagnosed with Hodgkin Disease
• Please continue to pray for Sue's sister and her ongoing chemotherapy
• Isaac asks us to keep praying for his friend Shaun whose mother died last month
• Abigail is having a great trip in Southeast Asia, but we can keep praying for her travels
• And we need to keep praying for our Joe and Sally Naughton
• Also, they didn't mention it in worship, but Jerry and Frankie are under a lot of different stresses right now, so please lift them up for peace and respite
• Joe mentioned last week that he is danger of losing his home to foreclosure, and we need to kept that in prayer
  

Week of April 5th... We're going to roll with the times... it's Holy Week! The Passion looms
closer and our weekly grace is a call to a change of posture. In your prayer time this week,
seek a closer moment with the Christ by praying with your arms out-stretched... you can be
standing, kneeling or even lying on the floor. Just reach those arms out as though upon a
cross, and lift up your prayers.

March's Weekly Graces:

Week of March 29th... On Sunday we heard the cry of Christ on the cross, "My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?" It's a very human moment. It's a cry of anguish and pain fueled by
the ability to hold a great love, the kind of love that makes us vulnerable... can we pray for that
kind of love in our own lives this week? Can we learn to see others with a driving, Christ-like love?

Week of March 22nd... a prayer for the week...
     "Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
     to give and not count the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds;
     to toil and not seek for rest; to labor and not ask for reward,
     except to know that I am doing your will. Amen."   -St. Ignatius of Loyola

We cannot forget that we are the hands and feet, and so often, the words and actions of
Christ among our neighbors... so we try our best to rise to that call!

Week of March 15th Your grace for this week, a special challenge of intentionality, is to go
explore the Stations of the Cross... there are online websites to do this, or you can go find a
local church that offers the Stations. My favorite is to go the National Gallery, East Building,
lower level, and walk the paintings of Newman Barnett, an Minimilist painter who has a display
of all 14 Stations in a small oval room.  Here are some Notes on the Stations of the Cross
which we shared this past Sunday Morning.

Week of March 8th We returned this week to the first of our weekly graces from January, the
three-fold prayer, a favorite of Saint Ignatius
  "...to know Christ more intimately, to love Christ more intensely,to follow Christ more ardently..."
Inspired by Isaiah 58, we look to the hope of the third idea, the following of Christ, the translation
of the knowledge and love of Christ into action. This is the week's grace, to look around and to try to
catch site of all that God is doing around us, and to join in with the kind of following that changes
the world.

Week of March 1st  There is an amazing call of God in Isaiah 55. Within that calling, verse 2
has these words, "Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself
in abundance." God's call is to feed one's soul, on the richest fair. And in pursuit of that call we
talked about investing time this week in finding a copy of the scriptures which would help each
of us draw closer and hear that voice clearer. Don't let older, harder to understand translations
stand in your way. Go to a local bookstore and cruise the many different translations and study
Bibles that are available... do the kind of research on obtaining a good copy of the scriptures
that you'd do before buying a new car or a computer! This week, invest some time and energy
in engaging scripture in new ways, fresh ways and good ways. Feed your soul!

Previous Weekly Graces:

January & February 2009