The Jesus Prayer

In our recent service of prayer at Christ Church, we taught a version of what is called the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Other versions would be, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us." I have been using this prayer for several years now as a form of "praying without ceasing" - repetition that is not of the "vain" or meaningless variety (Mat. 6). (click here to see the transcript of the service.)

N. T. Wright has adapted and expanded this to a Prayer of the Trinity. Here is the article from ntwrightpage.com that gives more background and suggestions for prayer. Check it out!

Also, here is a link to an article that goes into more detail on biblical basis and practice for praying the Jesus Prayer.

Scott McKnight of North Park University has an excellent blog that has tons of great theological discussions and links to many Prayer traditions that we can learn from.

One Sentence Summary

In a recent Christ Church sermon, I quoted this sentence that summarizes the Biblical Story. It comes from the International Bible Society paperback edition of the TNIV Bible, God's Story.

“HOW GOD CREATED THE WORLD, WATCHED IT TURN AGAINST HIS PURPOSE, LIVED AMONG US, WAS STILL REJECTED BECAUSE HE DIDN’T FIT EXPECTATIONS, TURNED EVERYTHING UPSIDE DOWN TO GET THINGS BACK ON TRACK AND NOW INVITES YOU TO FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE STORY OF GOD!”

Bible Reading Plans for this series

I want to recommend two very simple and convenient reading plans that can go along with the series, The Story We Find Ourselves In.
One is from International Bible Society's God's Story edition and gives essential passages that go with the "Acts" of the biblical drama.
The other is from Bible Gateway.com which offers several reading plans including two that gives readings from each book of the Bible over 61 days. You get a birdseye view of the Bible's themes and characters in a two month overview. All of these plans have the passages linked to the reading itself if you want to read it online.

Welcome to "The Story We Find Ourselves In"

Welcome to our teaching blog! We all have a need to increase our Biblical Literacy. This is more than knowledge for the head. It is part of the ongoing joy of spiritual formation - being transformed into the likeness of Christ. Fall and winter, 2006-07 is a major series to help us better see and understand God’s Big Picture - what we’re calling The Story We Find Ourselves In. The phrase is not original with me, but it captures the need to truly live in the Biblical story as a Compassionate Counter-cultural Community. We will teach the Bible as a Drama in Six Acts: Act 1 – Creation, Act 2 - “Fall” or Rebellion, Act 3 - Israel, Act 4 – Jesus, Act 5 – The Church, Acts 6 – The Renewal of all things.

A great book to study along with this series is one I'm using for my URI Biblical Thought course called The Drama Of Scripture. This link will take you to a helpful website where the authors have posted articles and resources to get the most from the book.