D A Y B Y D A Y

A RESOURCE FOR CHURCHES AND

OTHER SERIOUS DISCIPLES OF JESUS

For the past 35 years, residents of The Peace House and other members of Metanoia Peace  Community United Methodist Church have gathered in the Peace House living room every morning—six days a week—for morning prayer and “lectio divina” (scripture meditation).  For us this daily practice, unusual in this day when most Christians are accustomed to gathering only weekly, is reminiscent of the life of the earliest followers of the Risen Christ, in the “church before Christianity” as described in the New Testament book of The Acts of the Apostles:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  . .  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as any had need  . . . Day by day . . . they broke bread at home and ate their food  with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people.  And day by day [God] added to their number those who were being saved.”                                                                             --Acts 2: 42-47.

 We who have been blessed through this daily practice want to offer the following resource to help those who would like to try observing daily communal prayer with others in their congregation or another circle of friends. 

HERE IS OUR OFFER:

Send us your email address and every week from now on we will send you the following items which you can print  out and use as you see fit:

1.    An order of service for use in your small daily prayer/meditation group.  (see sample below)  The wording in the order of service will change every few weeks based upon the seasons of the church year.

2.    A calendar of scripture readings to read on each day of the following week.  Most of the week’s readings will be from the New Testament, including readings recommended in the New Revised Common Lectionary for reading during church services on the following Sunday.  For the more adventurous we will also include an optional reading from the Gospel of Thomas or some other non-canonical text.

3.    A print-out of each scripture passage in the NRSV so that all participants will be able to read the same text during the lectio divina.*  (Follow this link to learn more about lectio divina: thepeacehouse.org/lectio-divina.)

For more information contact John Schwiebert, 503 539-2844 or john@tearsoup.comor Michael Ellick, 646 734-0162 or mellick23@yahoo.com.  

If you want to see how it works for us, please feel free to attend one or more of our daily gatherings at the Peace House, 2116 NE 18th Ave., Portland.  We meet at 7:00 AM on Mondays through Fridays, and 7:30 AM on Saturdays and major holidays.  Our gatherings usually last for 40 minutes.  Please wear a face mask, whether or not you have been vaccinated against COVID 19. 

Some reflections on the importance of daily communal prayer and lectio divina.*

In the short scripture passage—Acts 2:42-47--quoted above, the phrase “day-by-day” appears twice.  Why is there such a strong emphasis on a daily gathering of Jesus’s disciples? The writer gives us two clues:

First, the impulse to gather daily comes immediately after Peter, preaching on Pentecost, has called upon “every one of you” to repent (1.e. radically change your collective life together) in order to “save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”  Repentance, for the followers of risen Jesus (the body of Christ) will mean making a clean break from the destructive ways of the dominant culture (“this corrupt generation”) and instead immersing themselves daily in the values and ways of the kin’dom of God that they will then receive from the promised Holy Spirit

Second, we are told that as they devoted themselves daily to this practice of repentance, “[God] added to their number those who were being saved,” (i.e. being saved from this corrupt generation).  Notice the tense of the verb: “being saved.”  The writer of Acts sees salvation through repentance as an ongoing process, not just a one-time event.

Those in our 21st century who have embarked on a path to recovery from various forms of addiction will be able immediately to understand what Acts 2: 42-27 is talking about. “One day at a time” is a favorite slogan of people in recovery.  They know that recovery is not just a one-time decision but a choice that must be recovered, repeated, and reinforced every day, usually by attending twelve-step meetings where they receive insight and encouragement in fellowship with others who are also on the recovery path. 

We in Metanoia Peace Community are continually discovering how we are addicted to the ways and systems of the American empire in which we live.  We are a part of a corrupt and corrupting generation infected with racism, fascism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism, militarism, gun violence and a host of other evils.  By praying together daily we are continuing on the path of recovery from these pervasive influences as we seek daily to live into the kin’dom of God which stands in stark contrast to the ways of the dominant culture.

That’s why we are inviting other followers of Jesus, especially our United Methodist brothers and sisters to join us in communal daily prayer and lectio divina.*  For it was our founder John Wesley who, in the early days when Methodism was a lay movement that had not yet become a church institution, said that “there is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission in these [Methodist] societies: “a desire to flee from the wrath to come [Peter’s “corrupt generation” and the direction it is headed?] and to be saved from their sins.”  That is why we are inviting others to adopt this daily practice or “method,” to use the word from which Methodism got its name!