St. Nicolai Notes

LENTEN PRAYERS 2019

If you wish to get directly to today's prayer, go to this web site and read The United Church of Christ Statement of Faith in the Form of a Doxology: http://www.ucc.org/beliefs_statement-of-faith#DOX

There are three English and one Spanish version of the UCC Statement of Faith there.

This is the first time since at least 2001 that I am not writing a new set of Lenten prayers. Maybe I will be able to do so again next year.

This set of prayers was the first of three sets that were written in response to the UCC Statement of Faith. I wrote them, in part, to fulfill a project requirement to give me dual standing in the UCC (along with the Free Methodist denomination).

These were written in 2007, so before I went on facebook. A cherished friend (and author) encouraged me to go on facebook in order to post prayers I had written. Using blogger and facebook together was the result.

Some friends saw these prayers in photocopied booklets. You may still find them interesting. If you've encountered my prayers only through facebook, then these will be new to you.

What follows is the original introduction to the Lenten Prayer booklet for 2007.

Peace and Joy as you read!

Dave Antieau

Ash Wednesday

2019

PRAISE AND GLORY: PRAYERS OF PRAISE ENGAGING THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST STATEMENT OF FAITH

     Lenten disciplines typically focus on self-denial, self-examination, confession and repentance.  I have taken a different approach for  this prayer guide by writing prayers of praise in response to the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith.

     Three versions of the UCC Statement of Faith can be found in these pages.  The original version (First Sunday) was approved by the Second General Synod of the United Church of Christ, in 1959.  The second (Second Sunday), is an adaptation written by Robert V. Moss, Jr., in 1976.  Moss, who concluded his term as President of the UCC in that year, updated the language of the statement and made it more inclusive.  The third version (Day 1), is a doxology approved by the Executive Council of the UCC in 1981.  This form turns the statement of faith into a prayer, addressing and blessing God directly.

     Unlike some statements in other Christian denominations, the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith is not considered binding upon all who are members of the UCC.  There is freedom, within the denomination, to express the core of faith in other ways.

     Still, the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith seems like a useful resource for theological reflection and prayer.  It engages the key themes of both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, providing less detail on some points (particularly related to the details of Jesus’ life), but providing fuller expression at others (especially related to the creation and life of the church).

     A strength of the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, in all versions, is its focus on God’s action.  God calls, creates, seeks, judges, and promises (and more).  This reminds me of Psalm 147, where the God of Israel is described as a God of action.  There, in only twenty verses, we find twenty-six verbs relating to God’s action (twenty-four in present tense and two in past tense).

     For those of you who are United Church of Christ members, I hope these prayers will give you a greater appreciation for the theological heritage of the UCC and that they will refresh your prayer life during the coming days.

     For those of you who are not part of the United Church of Christ, I hope that these prayers will encourage you to look more closely at your own statements of faith than you may have done in a while.  I also hope your prayer lives will be refreshed by these prayers.

     The prayers I have written are reflections of my own personality.  They reflect my personal patterns of thought and language usage.  At the same time, I have written them so that they do not focus on the specific details of my own life.  I hope you will not get bogged down in these prayers, but, if you do, it will be from the language and not from the details of my life.

     I recommend that you read the prayers aloud.  I have read them aloud as I have written them, so most of them have some sense of rhythm that may be missed if you read them silently. 

     As I commonly do, I’ve written these prayers in the first person plural, instead of in the first personal singular (“we” instead of “I”).  I do this because I want to encourage us to see that all of our prayer, even when we pray in the privacy of our homes, is prayer within the context of the life of the church.  I hope that we can think of ourselves as praying together even when we are apart. 

     At the same time, I hope that these prayers will stimulate further prayer on your part.  I hope that they will encourage you to focus on areas of your life where more concentrated prayer is necessary.  In such cases, you will move from the “we” of these prayers to the “I” of your personal situation.

     After the prayer for each day, I have provided a few scripture references that may provide further guidance for your prayer.  The scripture passages do not provide a systematic basis for the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, but represent those passages that came to mind as I was writing or that otherwise influenced the shape of the prayers.  The order of the biblical references approximates the order in which various themes appear in the prayers.

     Since the prayers have been written in the first person plural, I hope they will be useful for public worship as well as for private devotion.  If you are in a position to use these prayers for public worship, in other congregations, please let me know whether or not they seemed useful for guiding people into worship.

     A final note to members of St. Nicolai United Church of Christ: We will be using some of these prayers in public worship.  Please feel free to give me feedback about whether you found them to be a useful feature of our worship together.