Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
By Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro
Zondervan, 2010, 592 pp., $24.99, Zondervan.com
I love the oxymoronic subtitle Ordinary Radicals. This nearly 600-page devotional focuses on communal prayer and helps evangelicals rediscover the richness of liturgy. It is ecumenical (in a good way) exposing the reader to a diverse collection of historically significant theologians (Tertullian, Buechner, Origen, Polycarp, Keillor, Schaeffer, Bonhoeffer and Chesterton). As suggested by the authors, use of this devotional is not to be done in isolation. The content is organized and designed to be read aloud by the participants. There are instructions to stretch our understanding of common prayer and the use of prayer beads, bowls and whole body prayer. Each day’s reading/prayer includes an historical context by a brief biography of the person who wrote the prayer or lived during the time. Just reading this book served as a great refresher in church history for me, although there seemed to be a bit of a political bias in that review. I can see this as a powerfully engaging resource for your high school or college small groups. The authors give a shout out to Phyllis Tickle, and I would place this work next to hers (The Divine Hours) in my library.
