Luke 11:1-13 Dear Partner in Preaching, I think I would find this passage easier to preach on if there weren’t so many people dying right now. I know, I know, people die every day. More than that, people die in really difficult, preventable, tragic ways every day that I know nothing about. But in recent weeks, the violence in our cities and around the world has been nearly overwhelming. Orlando, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Nice, Baton Rouge again… there are too many people dying for me to read this passage and wonder, not how to pray, but why we pray at all. And here’s the thing: the overwhelming majority of the people we preach to...

A few weeks ago we had a great discussion about prayer. What it is, what we believe about it, what we don’t understand, what we do, how we practice it, and more. I learned a lot from it and am still mulling it over. Shortly after that, I came upon this interview with Richard Rohr. Richard is a Franciscan monk and author of numerous books, including the recent Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life and Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self. I really appreciated Richard’s view that prayer can be anything – anything done in a state of communion and connection. Communion and connection with God, with others, and...