"Minister's Prayer Book" ed. John W. Doberstein. Short Review


I have used this prayer book since 1988. At that time I was a bi-vocational minister in a little Florida congregation while a Sergeant on Active Duty in the U.S. Air Force. I have continued to use it regularly through the years, and even now as a Presbyterian minister. I own two copies, and have used them so much that the bindings of both are broken and tattered, and the pages are worn and marked up.

The volume is helpful on many fronts. There is a set of suggested orders for morning, noon and evening prayers. Also, Doberstein has included material from Luther's morning and evening prayer, as well as Luther's "A Simple Guide to Prayer" given to his barber. The editor has further mapped out a regular order of prayer for each day of the week. The middle section of the prayer book includes two years of Scripture lessons along with Collects or prayers, all of which follow the liturgical calendar. The largest portion of the volume is given over to "Meditations for Ministers," which encompasses readings from across the ecclesiastical spectrum that are, for the most part encouraging, instructive and devotional.

Though the manual is no longer in print, nevertheless I highly recommend it for all of my fellow ministers. The value of shaping their day in prayer is essential to their well-being and to their ministry. Though it has a hint of a Lutheran flavor, it still will be useful for all.

You should still be able to purchase a copy here: "Minister's Prayer Book"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more