Cloudy foggy morning here. Husband is off volunteering at a 50k run.
Cute photo up there. A contest of the will between nuthatch and woodpecker!!?😂The nuthatch is the pesky one around here. They will make Swiss cheese out of a stucco house!
Kathaleena, the new friend I’ve met in my neighborhood plays ukulele and is taking mandolin lessons. I think from what she said that she and a friend sing and do gigs together. I hope to get to listen in sometime.
Speaking about high tech, as we were yesterday, making life difficult, Sam’s Club in this area ,and maybe everywhere will soon be scan and go, using your phone to scan and purchase as you shop rather than going through a cash register. They will no longer have cashiers. So people will have to have a certain type of phone to even shop there. I have been a member for years so it’s hard to fathom. Maybe this old dog can learn new tricks.
I like Sams but I’m not a fan of forced apps on my phone! They need to accommodate old stick in the muds like me😂
Safeway and King Soopers now have “digital” priced sales. You must have the app on your phone to get that sale price. Now they already have the “customer card” pricing and they track your purchases and information with that card. Why on earth do they need your phone to carry their app? Highly suspicious to me and what about breach of information? The banks and insurance companies cannot even guard against such so what makes us believe a grocery chain could!!? Nope
Cool catbird and red-bellied woodpecker! Catbirds can be tricky to photograph, ducking into the undergrowth as soon as they see a human, but they’re a fascinating bird.
It’s almost time for my Bible study group to choose a new study. Any suggestions? Has anyone done Why Do You Believe That? by Mary Jo Sharp? It is supposed to help those who would like to be able to better discuss our Christian faith with people.
Here at the house, as previously mentioned, we are venturing into the realm of liturgical readings and worship. I am curious about what people have learned in their lives concerning the Lord’s Prayer. In my mind, John 17 is the Lord’s Prayer but for the sake of discussion, now talking about “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” Our reading includes the recitation of that every night. Recently, I heard a sermon on that section, giving an in depth understanding of it and I try to remember the depth when reciting.
Anybody have any interesting encouragement on that passage? Any special meaning? An aversion to reciting it, preferring to use it as scaffolding for personal prayer?
I am unsure about what you mean by it being ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’ It was given to teach us how to pray, so that certainly makes it a prayer for all of us. It does seem to unite all Christians. Protestants add to the end of it, otherwise, it is prayed in both Catholic and Protestant churches. It sounds like an interesting study. What did it say to the first ones who heard it? We pray it every Sunday. It is wonderful to memorize, IMO. It does make a good ‘outline’ for personal prayer.
Kathaleena, I have often heard it introduced as the Lord’s Prayer (join me in the Lord’s Prayer) and then people recite “Our Father ….” A good summary of prayer. We do it in our church every week.
But when I read the Word, John 17 is clearly the Son talking with the Father and we get to listen in. He praises the Father, asks that His will be done, petitions for us. No asking forgiveness, of course. But I beautiful fleshing in of the brief Lord’s Prayer we all memorize in some fashion.
Great question, Mumsee. I have heard it termed, “The Model Prayer.” Mostly I have heard it as you called it, The Lord’s Prayer.
I am trying to remember teachings on it that I have encountered through life. One that stuck with me was that it begins with, “Our Father.” That indicates that we would gather to pray with others. Because we pray not only for bread, but for ‘daily’ bread, it indicates we are to make it a daily habit to pray like that, and that God supplies our needs day by day.
It’s Luke 11, when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and He does the model prayer ot Lord’s prayer.
Forgive our sins is a part of the petition, and it reminds we are to forgive the sins of others. The prayer also asks for God’s guidance to not lead into temptation, which gives me pause to consider that God never sets up temptation, but our fleshly hearts lead themselves into falling for temptation set by Satan. So the petition,in my point of view, could be reworded into, “guard my heart and keep my focus on You, God.”
As has been mentioned, I have been taught that the Lord’s Prayer is like a template for how to pray. My personal opinion is that along with that, we can simply pray the prayer as it appears in the Bible, although not necessarily in place of using it as a template, except at those times when perhaps we just don’t know what else to pray.
We have a beautiful albeit windy day here today. Ukrainian missionaries spoke during our service. Sobering.
Prayer should be intimate. Communion between God and His children. Jesus perfectly instructed when asked “ how should we?” Honoring our Creator, relying upon Him for provision, trusting Him to protect us and knowing our heart. Not to be a chant to be repeated but a model on how to come before the throne of glory. I love the depth of His instruction. Just my 2 cents…
Yes, the words of the Lord’s Prayer merely rattled off without much thought or feeling, or as some kind of formula, could indeed be vain repetition. It all depends on the heart of the person saying the words.
There are prayers of my own that I repeat word-for-word, or close to it, almost every night. But God knows that I mean them with all my heart because they are the cry of my heart for my family.
Mumsee – I suspect that you may also be referring to the need for us to think deeply about what the prayer is leading us to think about and pray, whether we pray those words or use it as a template for our own.
We pray the Lord’s Prayer aloud together every Sunday as we end our congregational prayer in our service, I/we find it very meaningful as a practice.
Our pastor also emphasizes that all churches have a liturgy that they follow; often we hear a (false) “distinction” being made between “liturgical” and non-liturgical churches, but all churches have what is basically a form of church worship.
We do have a ‘practice’ on the last Sunday of the month where our music uses piano accompaniment only (as opposed to guitar w/microphones).
There was some restlessness when we brought back “screens” after our assembly room remodel a few years back.
We are still hoping to find and purchase an actual “church” building but so far we’ve been out-bid on everything we’ve put a bid on … we have an ongoing building fund and are still hopeful to find a church building for sale in the general beach area (which is where our church has always been located for 30+ years now). … Our lease has worked out but is very expensive and we continue to grow … and would love an actual space that was built as a sanctuary.
Some hope remains that a mainline Presbyterian church nearby — where our pastor has had long-term ties and the congregation, now smaller and which has left the mainline but is with a newer more traditional presbyterian body, just not ‘ours’ (yet) — could prove to be a solution …
The local Methodist church was offered to our church for a dollar. Would that work for you? Looks very churchy. But we are centrally located and they are about four buildings away. I think we declined.
We’ve looked at church buildings of all kinds up for sale (last one was a Christian Science building — we were outbid by a developer who turned it into a shopping center with a bank as the anchor tenant.)
Option before that was a church of another denomination that we would share, but the female pastor was put off by our position on same-sex marriage (we would still be searching for a church facility to purchase in the meantime).
We looked at a vacant lot on which to built but that would have been more expensive.
Before all that it was a Brethren church that was down to I believe about 4 elderly members and we’d bring those members into our congregation but they had scruples about our more conservative Presbyterian denomination … (Our pastor spent a summer on loan there preaching every Sunday, they had no permanent pastor anymore).
This search, clearly, has been ongoing for some years …
We are just thinking now (I believe) that the former mainline Presby church nearby — where our pastor has had longterm friendly ties — could be our surviving future hope, but we shall see …
For now, our leased space is working out, it’s large, we have access to it all week long and it has plenty of office and meeting space but it is quite expensive; it’s in a large business spark where there are two other churches that also meet in other parts of the general “park” (including one other reformed church in a different denomination that we can combine with for some activities including Reformation Day and other events through the course of the church calendar year).
But the facility itself is rather sterile in its design (which was hard for some of us to adapt to who came from actual church ‘architecture’ — I think there is a value to meeting in facilities like that in worship).
We do have a “must” for a meeting place to be in the same geographical vicinity, however — and it is rather expensive in the coastal zone where we are and have been for all the church’s long history. Parking also is a difficult issue as we are now a relatively larger congregation and older church buildings often were built in residential neighborhoods with modest parking (and often modest sanctuaries and meeting spaces).
The one (former) mainline Presby church nearby is on the main Pacific Coast Highway and has its own parking lot across the street that could accommodate us. (And its current congregation is now much smaller than it once was so has excess space.)
(One of the remaining sticking points, as I understand it, is that they still have an elder board that is primarily female and our church leadership, under our more conservative denomination, is all male – but they are “moving” in our direction, just not there — yet.)
mumsee, we did, that was when the Christian Science deal fell through and the mainline church decided, when it left the mainline, that it would joint with a new more conservative (but not as conservative as us) denomination that was forming specifically to take in the congregations leaving the mainline PCUSA churches leaving that denomination.
So … we made the decision to use some of our building fund for a much-needed remodel (this was maybe 8-10 years ago) of our existing lease facility until we might relaunch a purchase campaign. I’m not sure we’ve done that.
My guess is (and it’s purely a guess) we might still be keeping the former-mainline church with which we have always had friendly ties through our pastor in close reach, he still will guest-preach there at times during the summer months. But who knows. …
He grew up as a scrappy tyke on our local beaches, wandered into SS as a mere 7-year-old tanned surfer boy one random Sunday on a whim … he looked like one of the Our Gang kids in the pictures lol
Our pastor is probably going to at least semi-retire one of these days, he’s pastored this church since its beginning and my thinking is he would like to leave a legacy of a permanent brick-and-mortar building in this transient area and age for what he hopes will be its future generations, God willing.
And, as I said, leasing and renting is exorbitantly expensive here … So it’s not like we’re “saving” money by leasing.
I’m always rather shocked when I see how much we’re paying when the budget discussions come up each year.
And I do think there’s a value to church architecture, a space that speaks to and encourages “worship” with the tall ceilings, stained glass. I’ve also appreciate “plain” worship spaces as well as a former Quaker who has worshipped in plain Pennsylvania, NY, even old CA meeting houses, there’s a beauty to places that were “built for” the worship of God.
The discussion has been around the Lord’s prayer as in the Our Father, but John 17 is Jesus’ prayer just before he died. The two are not the same thing. Jesus began with “Our Father” when he answered the call of the disciples to teach them to pray. We have no reason to believe that it would be limited to the disciples. The model of the prayer is helpful and tells us much about the relationship between the Father and us.
Our church says the Lord’s prayer weekly, also the Apostle’s Creed and some doxology. I have no problem with any of that. In fact, I think it is helpful. I especially enjoy when I hear children say it all with us.
Kathaleena, John 17 and Luke 11 are not the same prayer but I see Christ using the same structure in both. Nothing wrong with saying Luke 11, together or alone. But it is nice to see it fleshed out. We can follow the same thing.
Obviously in Luke he was teaching to pray and knew we needed to continually be confessing our sins and asking forgiveness. He did not need that in John.
And in John He clearly states that He is not only referring to the disciples but also those who will hear later, vs 20.
We also use the creeds and various catechisms in our responsive readings each Sunday.
This is the first “regular (non-specific church) building” I’ve worshiped in and while it wouldn’t be my choice of worship architecture it isn’t a big deal — the church is the people, after all, and is wherever God meets His gathered people. (I also have worshipped in house churches when visiting friends across the country, now that I think about it, various homeschool and family groups that would gather in homes in rural communities.)
So the weekend is already over? They go fast. … 😦 Too fast.
I have done three this year by Explorer’s Bible Study and they are all excellent. The web site is ebshome dot org
I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I have gone to the web site and they have lots of studies. going from four weeks to 36 weeks. I really like the format and our leader also does a lecture, though it is not needed.
Wandering Views 
Good morning!
What a wonderful photo, AJ! Where did you take that? I assume when you went fishing?
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Cloudy foggy morning here. Husband is off volunteering at a 50k run.
Cute photo up there. A contest of the will between nuthatch and woodpecker!!?😂The nuthatch is the pesky one around here. They will make Swiss cheese out of a stucco house!
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You know your birds, NJ!
Kathaleena, the new friend I’ve met in my neighborhood plays ukulele and is taking mandolin lessons. I think from what she said that she and a friend sing and do gigs together. I hope to get to listen in sometime.
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Speaking about high tech, as we were yesterday, making life difficult, Sam’s Club in this area ,and maybe everywhere will soon be scan and go, using your phone to scan and purchase as you shop rather than going through a cash register. They will no longer have cashiers. So people will have to have a certain type of phone to even shop there. I have been a member for years so it’s hard to fathom. Maybe this old dog can learn new tricks.
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I like Sams but I’m not a fan of forced apps on my phone! They need to accommodate old stick in the muds like me😂
Safeway and King Soopers now have “digital” priced sales. You must have the app on your phone to get that sale price. Now they already have the “customer card” pricing and they track your purchases and information with that card. Why on earth do they need your phone to carry their app? Highly suspicious to me and what about breach of information? The banks and insurance companies cannot even guard against such so what makes us believe a grocery chain could!!? Nope
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Cool catbird and red-bellied woodpecker! Catbirds can be tricky to photograph, ducking into the undergrowth as soon as they see a human, but they’re a fascinating bird.
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It’s almost time for my Bible study group to choose a new study. Any suggestions? Has anyone done Why Do You Believe That? by Mary Jo Sharp? It is supposed to help those who would like to be able to better discuss our Christian faith with people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here at the house, as previously mentioned, we are venturing into the realm of liturgical readings and worship. I am curious about what people have learned in their lives concerning the Lord’s Prayer. In my mind, John 17 is the Lord’s Prayer but for the sake of discussion, now talking about “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” Our reading includes the recitation of that every night. Recently, I heard a sermon on that section, giving an in depth understanding of it and I try to remember the depth when reciting.
Anybody have any interesting encouragement on that passage? Any special meaning? An aversion to reciting it, preferring to use it as scaffolding for personal prayer?
mumsee
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I am unsure about what you mean by it being ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’ It was given to teach us how to pray, so that certainly makes it a prayer for all of us. It does seem to unite all Christians. Protestants add to the end of it, otherwise, it is prayed in both Catholic and Protestant churches. It sounds like an interesting study. What did it say to the first ones who heard it? We pray it every Sunday. It is wonderful to memorize, IMO. It does make a good ‘outline’ for personal prayer.
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Kathaleena, I have often heard it introduced as the Lord’s Prayer (join me in the Lord’s Prayer) and then people recite “Our Father ….” A good summary of prayer. We do it in our church every week.
But when I read the Word, John 17 is clearly the Son talking with the Father and we get to listen in. He praises the Father, asks that His will be done, petitions for us. No asking forgiveness, of course. But I beautiful fleshing in of the brief Lord’s Prayer we all memorize in some fashion.
interesting to me to hear how others view it
mumsee
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Great question, Mumsee. I have heard it termed, “The Model Prayer.” Mostly I have heard it as you called it, The Lord’s Prayer.
I am trying to remember teachings on it that I have encountered through life. One that stuck with me was that it begins with, “Our Father.” That indicates that we would gather to pray with others. Because we pray not only for bread, but for ‘daily’ bread, it indicates we are to make it a daily habit to pray like that, and that God supplies our needs day by day.
It’s Luke 11, when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and He does the model prayer ot Lord’s prayer.
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I stopped to edit and got shut down.
I have also heard how we are to respectfully enter His presence, in reverence and ‘fear’ so we do not put Petitions before honoring Him.
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Again, shut down when trying to edit.
Forgive our sins is a part of the petition, and it reminds we are to forgive the sins of others. The prayer also asks for God’s guidance to not lead into temptation, which gives me pause to consider that God never sets up temptation, but our fleshly hearts lead themselves into falling for temptation set by Satan. So the petition,in my point of view, could be reworded into, “guard my heart and keep my focus on You, God.”
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As has been mentioned, I have been taught that the Lord’s Prayer is like a template for how to pray. My personal opinion is that along with that, we can simply pray the prayer as it appears in the Bible, although not necessarily in place of using it as a template, except at those times when perhaps we just don’t know what else to pray.
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Sometimes the words in the prayer as read in the Bible are very comforting.
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I have heard it called “vain repetition” and it can be. It is important to know what you are saying. The words are very deep if you ponder them.
mumsee
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We have a beautiful albeit windy day here today. Ukrainian missionaries spoke during our service. Sobering.
Prayer should be intimate. Communion between God and His children. Jesus perfectly instructed when asked “ how should we?” Honoring our Creator, relying upon Him for provision, trusting Him to protect us and knowing our heart. Not to be a chant to be repeated but a model on how to come before the throne of glory. I love the depth of His instruction. Just my 2 cents…
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Yes, the words of the Lord’s Prayer merely rattled off without much thought or feeling, or as some kind of formula, could indeed be vain repetition. It all depends on the heart of the person saying the words.
There are prayers of my own that I repeat word-for-word, or close to it, almost every night. But God knows that I mean them with all my heart because they are the cry of my heart for my family.
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And for others!
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That is sweet Kizzie. He knows your heart oh so well and I am certain He hears❣️
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Thank you, NJ. 🙂
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Mumsee – I suspect that you may also be referring to the need for us to think deeply about what the prayer is leading us to think about and pray, whether we pray those words or use it as a template for our own.
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We pray the Lord’s Prayer aloud together every Sunday as we end our congregational prayer in our service, I/we find it very meaningful as a practice.
Our pastor also emphasizes that all churches have a liturgy that they follow; often we hear a (false) “distinction” being made between “liturgical” and non-liturgical churches, but all churches have what is basically a form of church worship.
We do have a ‘practice’ on the last Sunday of the month where our music uses piano accompaniment only (as opposed to guitar w/microphones).
There was some restlessness when we brought back “screens” after our assembly room remodel a few years back.
We are still hoping to find and purchase an actual “church” building but so far we’ve been out-bid on everything we’ve put a bid on … we have an ongoing building fund and are still hopeful to find a church building for sale in the general beach area (which is where our church has always been located for 30+ years now). … Our lease has worked out but is very expensive and we continue to grow … and would love an actual space that was built as a sanctuary.
Some hope remains that a mainline Presbyterian church nearby — where our pastor has had long-term ties and the congregation, now smaller and which has left the mainline but is with a newer more traditional presbyterian body, just not ‘ours’ (yet) — could prove to be a solution …
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We met there in the afternoons for several months during our remodel and the acoustics were amazing 🙂 …
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The local Methodist church was offered to our church for a dollar. Would that work for you? Looks very churchy. But we are centrally located and they are about four buildings away. I think we declined.
mumsee
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Kizzie, I was just interested in how different folk use it or view it. I like all the answers so far!
mumsee
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We’ve looked at church buildings of all kinds up for sale (last one was a Christian Science building — we were outbid by a developer who turned it into a shopping center with a bank as the anchor tenant.)
Option before that was a church of another denomination that we would share, but the female pastor was put off by our position on same-sex marriage (we would still be searching for a church facility to purchase in the meantime).
We looked at a vacant lot on which to built but that would have been more expensive.
Before all that it was a Brethren church that was down to I believe about 4 elderly members and we’d bring those members into our congregation but they had scruples about our more conservative Presbyterian denomination … (Our pastor spent a summer on loan there preaching every Sunday, they had no permanent pastor anymore).
This search, clearly, has been ongoing for some years …
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God knows the need and it sounds like you are smack dab where He wants you for now.
mumsee
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But you recently did a remodel.
mumsee
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We are just thinking now (I believe) that the former mainline Presby church nearby — where our pastor has had longterm friendly ties — could be our surviving future hope, but we shall see …
For now, our leased space is working out, it’s large, we have access to it all week long and it has plenty of office and meeting space but it is quite expensive; it’s in a large business spark where there are two other churches that also meet in other parts of the general “park” (including one other reformed church in a different denomination that we can combine with for some activities including Reformation Day and other events through the course of the church calendar year).
But the facility itself is rather sterile in its design (which was hard for some of us to adapt to who came from actual church ‘architecture’ — I think there is a value to meeting in facilities like that in worship).
We do have a “must” for a meeting place to be in the same geographical vicinity, however — and it is rather expensive in the coastal zone where we are and have been for all the church’s long history. Parking also is a difficult issue as we are now a relatively larger congregation and older church buildings often were built in residential neighborhoods with modest parking (and often modest sanctuaries and meeting spaces).
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The one (former) mainline Presby church nearby is on the main Pacific Coast Highway and has its own parking lot across the street that could accommodate us. (And its current congregation is now much smaller than it once was so has excess space.)
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(One of the remaining sticking points, as I understand it, is that they still have an elder board that is primarily female and our church leadership, under our more conservative denomination, is all male – but they are “moving” in our direction, just not there — yet.)
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mumsee, we did, that was when the Christian Science deal fell through and the mainline church decided, when it left the mainline, that it would joint with a new more conservative (but not as conservative as us) denomination that was forming specifically to take in the congregations leaving the mainline PCUSA churches leaving that denomination.
So … we made the decision to use some of our building fund for a much-needed remodel (this was maybe 8-10 years ago) of our existing lease facility until we might relaunch a purchase campaign. I’m not sure we’ve done that.
My guess is (and it’s purely a guess) we might still be keeping the former-mainline church with which we have always had friendly ties through our pastor in close reach, he still will guest-preach there at times during the summer months. But who knows. …
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He actually got his ministry start there as their youth pastor once upon a time 🙂
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He grew up as a scrappy tyke on our local beaches, wandered into SS as a mere 7-year-old tanned surfer boy one random Sunday on a whim … he looked like one of the Our Gang kids in the pictures lol
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in the church I now attend, we don’t typically say the Lord’s Prayer, but we have occasionally. In the Methodist Church it was said weekly.
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Our pastor is probably going to at least semi-retire one of these days, he’s pastored this church since its beginning and my thinking is he would like to leave a legacy of a permanent brick-and-mortar building in this transient area and age for what he hopes will be its future generations, God willing.
And, as I said, leasing and renting is exorbitantly expensive here … So it’s not like we’re “saving” money by leasing.
I’m always rather shocked when I see how much we’re paying when the budget discussions come up each year.
And I do think there’s a value to church architecture, a space that speaks to and encourages “worship” with the tall ceilings, stained glass. I’ve also appreciate “plain” worship spaces as well as a former Quaker who has worshipped in plain Pennsylvania, NY, even old CA meeting houses, there’s a beauty to places that were “built for” the worship of God.
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Actually, that is one of the reasons dad won’t go to church. It is not a real church because it does not look like one.
mumsee
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The discussion has been around the Lord’s prayer as in the Our Father, but John 17 is Jesus’ prayer just before he died. The two are not the same thing. Jesus began with “Our Father” when he answered the call of the disciples to teach them to pray. We have no reason to believe that it would be limited to the disciples. The model of the prayer is helpful and tells us much about the relationship between the Father and us.
Our church says the Lord’s prayer weekly, also the Apostle’s Creed and some doxology. I have no problem with any of that. In fact, I think it is helpful. I especially enjoy when I hear children say it all with us.
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Kathaleena, John 17 and Luke 11 are not the same prayer but I see Christ using the same structure in both. Nothing wrong with saying Luke 11, together or alone. But it is nice to see it fleshed out. We can follow the same thing.
Obviously in Luke he was teaching to pray and knew we needed to continually be confessing our sins and asking forgiveness. He did not need that in John.
And in John He clearly states that He is not only referring to the disciples but also those who will hear later, vs 20.
mumsee
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Yes, I agree. I have never heard that he was only referring to the disciples. For sure he was not in part of the prayer.
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We also use the creeds and various catechisms in our responsive readings each Sunday.
This is the first “regular (non-specific church) building” I’ve worshiped in and while it wouldn’t be my choice of worship architecture it isn’t a big deal — the church is the people, after all, and is wherever God meets His gathered people. (I also have worshipped in house churches when visiting friends across the country, now that I think about it, various homeschool and family groups that would gather in homes in rural communities.)
So the weekend is already over? They go fast. … 😦 Too fast.
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I have done three this year by Explorer’s Bible Study and they are all excellent. The web site is ebshome dot org
I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I have gone to the web site and they have lots of studies. going from four weeks to 36 weeks. I really like the format and our leader also does a lecture, though it is not needed.
Jo
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