Thinking About Prayer

I am very satisfied with my order of daily prayer, which I can no longer post online due to copyright restrictions.  Yet this experience - and the comments on that post - has encouraged me to reflect further about what a particularly Lutheran approach to prayer looks like. 

Back in September I pushed back against Lutherans who severely criticized the form of the Daily Office that appears in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.  In that post I suggested that we Lutherans do not have a tradition of praying the Daily Office, and I began articulating what a natively Lutheran form of prayer might be.  That's about when I began posting my form of Daily Prayer on my blog (adapted from Responsive Prayer in Evangelical Lutheran Worship). 

I will now continue exploring what a natively Lutheran form of daily prayer might be.  As work, family, and Candidacy responsibilities allow, I will read through Luther's writings - particularly his catechetical and devotional works - to tease out his suggestions for a practice of daily prayer.  Based on this reading I hope to compose an order of prayer rooted in our Lutheran tradition yet fresh in its articulation.  This will be a long process, but I hope by summertime to have a rich order of prayer available to be used, shared, adapted, and prayed by anyone who stumbles upon this site.

For now I have posted a simple and truncated form of Daily Prayer over on my Daily Prayer page.  Daily Prayer with daily lectionary citations will be posted by day's end over at my Daily Prayer Delivered blog.

Let us pray.

Comments

[Derek the Ænglican]

Out of curiosity--why read Luther? Seriously.

Not that there's anything wrong with Luther, but we're talking about a long, living tradition here. Why not read around about in Lutheran times and places from Spener to Loehe to Grundtvig and get a sense of what Lutheran prayer has looked ike on the ground in various times and places?

I'd still argue that a natively Lutheran daily prayer must include the rich hymnody of the tradition--but would Luther himself say that?

Just something to think about...