Praying the Psalms

Storyline is getting ready to spend a seven week conversation series based on the Psalms.  I am helping to plan and write the conversation guides for our house churches.  I will also be preaching in our October worship gathering giving an introduction to the series and an overview of the Psalms.  I am excited to have the opportunity to preach again and to preach on the Psalms.

The Psalms have been an formative source for my own approach to prayer and worship.  They confirm that life is comprised of different seasons and there are different and appropriate ways to talk to God as we journey through them.  The seasons I’m talking about are not summer, fall, winter, and spring, but rather times when everything in life seems to be going right or wrong and the transitions between the two.  I have found Walter Brueggemann’s organization of the Psalms helpful.  He generally groups the Psalms in one of three categories – poems of orientation (when life is good), poems of disorientation (times of suffering or conflict), and poems of new orientation (when joy breaks through despair).  The psalms show us how and sometimes even give us words to talk to God and each other during each of these seasons of life.  The Psalms encourage me with their hope, challenge me with their honesty, and help me imagine how to walk through life with faith.

I look forward to diving back into the Psalms.