At my church, we're having an all-night prayer vigil starting Maundy Thursday evening and going until noon on Good Friday. We have a sign-up sheet to choose a one-hour "shift" to spend alone with Jesus in the chapel during that time period, in prayer and meditation, with most time slots falling in the dead of night.
I'm planning to choose an hour in the middle of the night to go to remind myself of the loneliness and darkness Christ endured during his final hours. It's also a reminder of where we are in time as human beings, waiting for the light to come back to this world while so many of us feel lonely and hopeless and lost. I'm hoping some of you frens will want to join me Thursday night or Friday morning, wherever you are in the world, in praying for one hour to thank Jesus for what he endured and for peace for all people around the world who are suffering from all forms of tyranny, oppression, violence, cruelty, and trafficking.
I'm curious if anyone else has similar plans for Good Friday and what you'll be doing. In any case, I wish you a peaceful Holy Week.
I do not understand tho....Why do you NEED a church building to meditate>>?? God/Jesus doesnt accept calls from your house?? Or only prayers can be made in stained glass buildings>?
But the church DOES want you to be a good lil participant in the collection box
There is such a thing as corporate worship, where all the believers get together and worship God as one. Of course we should do individual prayer every day, and God is with us when we do. But corporate worship, especially in a place dedicated to God, produces a much stronger effect on the soul. The multiplier effect, fi you will. Listening to this hymn in a proper setting, with wonderful acoustics, makes the experience very much more moving and it penetrates the soul. Surely you can understand this. There ARE holy places. Not every place has this effect on the soul.
You can pray from home and not bash the church though
Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there..."
you don't have to be in a church to pray, but God wishes us to gather together and celebrate. how do we show love to one another if we never gather together?
I think the hippies got it right back in the '60s/'70s - they would gather out at the coast for worship and baptisms. I love being outside, and am always in awe of God's handiwork. One of my favorites to do was when my cousin and I would go fishing. We'd be on the lake at the crack of dawn, and there's nothing like watching the day come on, while sitting on a mirror lake with patches of little fog layers drifting across it.
These days, I enjoy the miracle of taking an insignificant speck of a seed, and watching it transform into a beautiful tomato, pepper, or whatever, plant, just from sticking it in some dirt and water.
I’d like to attend a baptism in a nice clear spring fed river in the mountains some day…
Living water.