As we continue to celebrate the Common Prayer Movement that’s connecting people of faith and action around the world, I want to answer a few of the frequently asked questions we’ve been hearing. If you missed it, we’ve had some great Q&A’s on common prayer with Steve Harper and Phyllis Tickle. The good news is this: the prayer renewal that’s at the heart of The Everyday Awakening is bigger than Common Prayer. It’s bigger than “new monasticism.” While these things... Read more
Last Wednesday night at church we had our annual Black History Month Program, recalling all that black folks have suffered in this country and remembering God’s faithfulness through it all. Nora, who’s two now, wasn’t settling into audience participation so well, so she and I spend a good part of the evening away from the gathering. But when it was getting late, Leah took her home for her bath and I went back into the church to get JaiMichael. We... Read more
Gandhi once said, “Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.” At the heart of Gandhi’s movement, which was rooted in the nonviolence of Jesus, was a constructive program centered by prayer. Wherever he was, Gandhi hosted common prayers first thing every morning. Christians often joined him. They recognized a truth that was also at their heart of their own faith. As the world aches in desperation for... Read more
Every once in a while, I stumble across a conversation that sounds familiar. Not only are people speaking my language, but they’re talking about the things that seem to matter most. Call it a moment of recognition. Call it a soul connection. Whatever you call it, it’s a gift. And gifts are to be celebrated. I’m especially grateful for conversations that are happening today about faithfulness in place. I talked to the dean of a liberal arts school last week... Read more
To mark and celebrate the release of the Common Prayer Pocket Edition this month, we’re running a series of interviews with scholars and wise elders who’ve helped to shape the common prayer movement that is at the heart of The Everyday Awakening in our time. If you missed it, you can check out my interview with Steve Harper here. No one has been more important to the contemporary renewal of liturgical prayer than Phyllis Tickle, the founding Religion Editor at... Read more
One of the great gifts of Common Prayer is that I know friends all around the world are praying with me everyday. Whatever we’re up against in our struggle to become the answer to our prayers here in Walltown, we’re not alone. I get notes of encouragement from some friends, prayer requests from others. We are a family knit together by the Holy Spirit, sustained by grace in the struggle for justice. Some of my most faithful corespondents in this... Read more
A big part of joining the everyday awakening that’s happening all around us is training our eyes to see it. But this isn’t easy work. It takes time. And help from others. There’s a level of skill to it, too–what the writer Flannery O’Connor called “the ability to stare.” For the past few years, I’ve had the chance to watch women in our Project TURN prison courses learn the craft of paying attention from Lauren Winner. Watching these women study... Read more
By Shane Claiborne This morning, at the National Prayer Breakfast, Barack Obama named Dorothy Day as a “great reformer in American history”. Who woulda thunk it? I think J. Edgar Hoover called her a threat to national security. Here’s the exact quote from the President’s speech: We can’t leave our values at the door. If we leave our values at the door, we abandon much of the moral glue that has held our nation together for centuries, and allowed us... Read more
At the Rutba House, we’ve learned from experience about our need for prayer. Thankfully, God has sent friends to help us open up the storehouse of the church’s liturgical prayer tradition. A little over a year ago, we teamed up with friends from The Simple Way to release Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals as an invitation to fellow-travelers around the world: “Let’s pray and act together.” The response has been incredible. We’ve found ourselves caught up in a... Read more
When I tell stories about the signs of hope I see in small communities of people who’ve devoted themselves to living the way of Jesus, Christians often ask if I see any signs of hope in congregations. My answer is always, “Yes.” Then I often tell a story about Englewood Christian Church. A “failed” mega-church in inner-city Indianapolis, Englewood has reorganized itself over the past two decades as a community of and for the neighborhood. It’s the sort of church... Read more
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
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