#The prayer book project 2 brian moss full#
One parent mentioned “getting an ear full about ‘we should do two tonight because we missed last night.’ I loved watching them learn that even mountains, trees, and animals can sing praises to God and how God is with us even in the darkest places.” Granite Springs people based private and family devotions on the psalms. Children’s, youth, music, and other ministries also aligned with this emphasis on psalms. The same psalms resurfaced in subsequent Sundays in calls to worship, prayers of confession, and sermon references.Īdams says that to build “a storehouse of love for the psalms” the church offered a small-group curriculum in psalms, which 80 percent of small groups chose to use. Leaders briefly explained where a given psalm fit in the Psalter and how others, such as Paul or St. Worshipers listened to or read entire psalms in worship. Finishing with the psalms of ascent (120-134).Exploring the vertical habits through psalms.Observing Lent with the Egyptian Hallel (Psalms 113-118) that Jewish people use during Passover.Focusing on creation psalms and stewardship.Framing the new year with four services on Psalms 103 and hesed (God’s unfailing love).Connecting “the psalms of Christmas” to Luke’s Advent narrative.Beginning with “The Anatomy of the Soul,” a phrase John Calvin used to describe the Psalms.Granite Springs experienced psalm-based sermons and worship in themed series: Starting a year of psalms as the economy tanked turned out to be “an amazing fit,” Adams says. The temptation is to practice a Christianity as upbeat and shiny as the surrounding culture. It’s a region of new homes, excellent schools, ample parks, low crime, and economic opportunity, not a place you’d expect to resonate with bleak Psalm 88 (“darkness is my closest friend”). On the surface, life looks easy in the fast-growing towns northeast of Sacramento. Granite Springs members were able to speak Psalms 23 and 46 together at the funeral because they were well into their “year of psalms,” which began in September 2008. We introduced the psalms we recited as ‘words to say when there is nothing to say’ and ‘words that have been tested and found helpful to millions of people from all different faith backgrounds,’ ” Adams says. Nearly 500 high schoolers attended Jesse Leimbach’s funeral. Like people from Palestine to Germany to North America, Granite Springs members have discovered that the Psalter provides a powerful vocabulary of faith. But Granite Springs has made an intergenerational effort to explore, learn, and use psalms at home and in worship. Keep in mind that few in this suburban Sacramento congregation could have recited psalms from memory three years ago. “During the funeral for Jesse we spoke two psalms from memory, Psalms 23 and 46, to encourage everyone attending, especially the high schoolers,” says Kevin Adams, senior pastor.
So they used the words God has given us all in the Psalms. When Jesse Leimbach died three years after being diagnosed with cancer, the people of Granite Springs Church in Lincoln, California, knew that pious clichés wouldn’t help.
What do you say to family, friends, and team mates gathered to mourn a life cut short by cancer at age 16? What comfort can you offer the grandparents who raised the young man?
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