Overview
Today on the podcast, I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Winfield Bevins, Director of the Church Planting Initiative at Asbury Seminary. Dr. Bevins recently released a book this month called Living Room Liturgy, a book of worship for the home. This book is just that–a compilation of guided prayer, scripture reading and prompts for reflection that Winfield has written to help the individual and family unit alike worship in the everyday moments of life that occur at home. And a lot of us are still at home right now, so it gives families a chance to gather in prayer for events ordinary and extraordinary.
Let’s listen!
*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.
Dr. Winfield Bevins, Director of the Church Planting Initiative at Asbury Seminary.
Winfield Bevins is a “liturgical missiologist” whose passion is to help others connect to the roots of the Christian faith for discipleship and mission. He currently serves as the Director of Church Planting at Asbury Theological Seminary. He frequently speaks at conferences on a variety of topics and as both an adjunct professor and guest lecturer at various seminaries and universities in the United States and England. He has a Doctor of Ministry from Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest and is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Having grown up in a free-church background, Winfield eventually found his spiritual home in the Anglican tradition, but freely draws wisdom from all church traditions. Having authored several books, his writings explore the convergence of tradition and mission. His latest Zondervan book, “Ever Ancient, Ever New,” examines young adults who have embraced Christian liturgy and how it has impacted their lives.
As an artist, Winfield is dedicated to connecting the church and the arts community. He is a visual artist who enjoys painting iconography, landscapes, and portraits. Over the past decade, he has helped start numerous arts initiatives, including a non-profit art gallery and studio, and an arts program in North Carolina.
He and his wife Kay have three beautiful girls Elizabeth, Anna Belle, and Caroline and live in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky.
Heidi Wilcox, host of the Thrive Podcast
Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.
Show Notes
Transcript
Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors, thought leaders, and people just like you, who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world deep need.
Heidi Wilcox:
Today on the podcast, I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Winfield Bevins, Director of the Church Planting Initiative at Asbury Seminary. Dr. Bevins recently released a book in December of this month called Living Room Liturgy, a book of worship for the home. This book is just a compilation of guided prayers, scripture readings, and prompts for reflection that Bevins has written to help the individual and family unit alike worship in the everyday moments of life that occur at home. And a lot of us are still at home right now, so it gives families a chance to gather in prayer for a bit ordinary and extraordinary. Let’s listen.
Heidi Wilcox:
Winfield, I am super excited to have you on the Thrive With Asbury Seminary Podcast today, to talk about your new book, Living Room Liturgy, that released earlier this month. Thanks for being on the podcast today.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Hey, it’s great to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, sure thing. I’m really excited about your book. I read through a little bit of preview copy, and it’s just beautiful and lovely and I just feel like everything we need, especially at this time that we’re living in right now, but I wanted to know what liturgy is.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. What is liturgy? That’s the million dollar question, you know?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. What I try to do, and I’ve done this with several pieces that I’ve written is to make liturgy accessible and to help people kind of get beyond the stereotype that liturgy’s something that happens in some crystal cathedral somewhere that’s disconnected from real life. Basically the word liturgy just means work of the people. And it’s historically a way that we worship in common and together, and I think liturgy belongs in everyday life. And that’s what I’m trying to do in this book is to just give people language and prayers for different seasons, different occasions, highs, lows of life. I think one of the things we’ve lost, and especially in the Western culture, is language to celebrate the highs, to celebrate key events of life, but also language to even be able to speak in difficult seasons, like pandemics and struggles of depression.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so, I’ve got just a wide range of prayers and liturgies that people can pray on their own, or whether with a family or a couple, or even with kids.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like for me liturgy, I love it because it gives me words when I don’t have words anymore or don’t know what to say. So, I really appreciate that. What inspired you to write Living Room Liturgy?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, honestly the past few years I’ve just been doing a lot of work in the area of just trying to take some of these rich historic prayers of the church and make them accessible to people that maybe don’t come from a traditional background, I certainly didn’t.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, me neither.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. And so, at first you get past the stereotype that, “Hey, this is somehow… Can I do this? Can I pray these prayers? Can I pray this way? Is it okay?” And my thing is, yes. And I think there’s a real gift in these prayers in that they kind of empower us, they give us language when we don’t have language, they help us pray when we don’t feel like praying. And to be honest this had been a project I’d had in my heart for a long time, and when the whole COVID thing started, I started kind of taking the project more serious and it just took off. I mean, it was like the Lord really gave me energy and I really felt like God anointed me. I wrote the book in my closet at home, literally.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow! Your literal closet?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. Maybe it should be called Closet Liturgy, but… And yeah, so I mean, started it in March and just really felt inspired to do this, and it just came together, just flowed, and-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Did you write all the prayers in the book or how did those come about?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. A lot of the… Some of the prayers are prayers that I’ve written, some of them my wife and I have written together. A lot of the prayers are adapted from the Book of Common Prayer which is it’s a prayer book that has been around for a long time, there’s various versions of that, and they’re open source prayers, so anyone can take them and use them, but there’s a richness in a written prayer tradition that again gives us language and frameworks for prayer sometimes when we don’t have it.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so yeah, I just kind of started, I felt inspired because of the whole pandemic and again, it just kind of came together and I got feedback from key leaders, and I’d sent it to some friends that were professors of worship just to kind of get their eyes on it. And it just, yeah, it just kind of came together and it’s exciting. I’ve sent it to friends around the world and there’s been people that have used it in different contexts. And so, that’s been exciting as well.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. And it would make a great Christmas present for people as they think about starting the new year as well because it’s lovely. One of the things I noticed in the prayers that you wrote is that each reading included the Lord’s Prayer. Why did you choose to include that particular prayer so many times?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Well, the Lord’s Prayer is kind of the family prayer.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
People pray that prayer all around the world that Jesus gave it to his disciples, which in turn have passed it on to us. And I think for those that are trying to understand and get into liturgy, the Lord’s Prayer is kind of, I think, a natural entry point. And the other thing with liturgy is that there’s power in repetition. And I think having some keys, like the Lord’s Prayer that we pray each time, like traditional liturgy, the Lord’s Prayer will always be a part of it. And it’s regardless of what the themes or prayers are or scriptures are for that week, you know that there’s a power in kind of memorizing the Lord’s Prayer and being able to pray that from heart.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so that’s one of the things. One is I think historic continuity, the Lord’s Prayer is a part of your kind of historic liturgies. And so I wanted to kind of have that, whereas a lot of what I’ve done is very contemporary that I felt like gave the liturgies in the book some continuity with some of the more historical forms of liturgy.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure. Living Room Liturgy contains liturgies for everything from a new pet, a wedding anniversary, to others that talk about lament and social distress. What were some of your favorite liturgies in this book and why do you particularly like those?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, one thing, I selfishly wrote this book for our own family. Some of the liturgies are stuff like, each year like during Advent, like I’d be pulling together stuff for lighting the Advent wreath, you know? And so I just kind of put the stuff that we did. And so, that’s the neat thing is a lot of these prayers are lived liturgies and prayers as well. Like we practice them and use them in the home.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
One that was really powerful for me that I didn’t realize at the time of writing it, but my mother passed away just a few months ago, and-
Heidi Wilcox:
I’m sorry, Winfield.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. Yeah. Talk about a tough time to lose a loved one. And I presided over her funeral, and because of the pandemic, my family didn’t go with me. And a couple of days later, I’d come home and I brought her some roses, and we just had our own Memorial service here in the home and we put out pictures and we put out roses and candles, and we used that liturgy and it was, in some ways, even more personal and more powerful than actually going to the… Because it allowed us to kind of do it in the home. We went around and each of us kind of shared about memories of grandmother and-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so that was a neat, neat’s not the right word, but just a real special, one special [crosstalk 00:09:38] as well. Yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
That is beautiful, Winfield. What are some of the other ways that your family incorporates liturgy into you all’s daily life?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I mean, I like the idea of space, and one of the things I talk about in the introduction is the idea of liturgy in the home. A lot of times we think of liturgy and worship as what happens, again, when we “go to church,” well, most of us aren’t going to church right now.
Heidi Wilcox:
Right, right.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so again, the idea of having a liturgy and having prayers to be able to pray in the home is so important. I think we’re reminded in all of this, that the church is domestic in its very foundation. And for us the kind of regaining a sense of the holiness of God in the ordinary spaces of our life, ordinary hours of the day, and kind of taking like for instance, the dinner table for us [inaudible 00:10:50], our table is kind of like our home altar. It’s where we gather for every meal, and when it’s dinner time, people aren’t eating meals in different rooms, we all gather around the table. And so that has been a natural place of worship and prayer and conversations about God for us.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so, yeah, I think that, whether it’s… It’s not so much our living room as much as maybe our dining room for us, and I think that’s the point of the book too, is like these prayers and liturgies, you can do them anywhere, and just it’s kind of a book that you can just take with you and just worship on the go.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah, which I like that. And that you can use it if you’re an individual person or a couple or with your family, and just I really like what you said about discovering the holy places in the ordinary and how liturgy helps us do that.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Sometimes, you kind of mentioned this earlier, liturgy is sometimes thought of as an outdated tradition, a holdover from the early church. Why would you argue that liturgy is still as relevant today as it was when the church first began?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I think what we’ve done in, again, in the West, I mean, there’s a whole history of how we got to this point, but we’ve reduced Christianity to a good sermon and a polished worship music that sounds like a band, and when we look at the majority of church history and we look at how Christians have been formed throughout the ages, liturgy has been one of… It actually it’s kind of, I call it, liturgy’s kind of like theology in motion. It’s kind of, it brings theology into the worship, there’s a discipling aspect to liturgy. It’s almost like a redeeming of the words that we speak and what we say, and…
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Now, I’m all for… I’ve told you in a previous interview that I’m a charismatic with the seatbelt.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
So I’ll raise my hands and get happy-clappy with the best of them, but oftentimes by focusing on kind of just mirror kind of outward and kind of more feeling driven me-centered worship, what the liturgy does is it, the words and the prayers and the scriptures, it really, other than it being me-centered, it’s very God-centered, if that makes sense. It really helps keep the focus. Liturgy has a theme, there’s a telos, there’s an aim, there’s a goal. And the other thing that I think is helpful with the liturgy is it’s not a show, it’s not just one person, but liturgy again, is designed to involve everyone. We pray these prayers together. And so again, it’s not an either or, I believe in spontaneous praying and these forms of worship and prayer.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
But we’re oftentimes missing deeper elements of prayer and worship by not being liturgical. And so, I don’t see it as an either or, I see it as a both and. And so, I would commend the book to people who are in liturgical churches, but I commend the book to maybe someone who’s an evangelical or a charismatic or more free church background that you can find a richness and a renewal in digging into these rich prayers.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely. How do you envision families or groups or even individuals using the book?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, I think someone can use it by themself. Even though it has the idea of home and family, I think you can just simply pray the prayers, where there are like responses, you don’t have to do those, but again, there’s scriptures and there’s prayers that you can pray. What I think will be helpful is families or couples can break out the book and use it for special occasions. Again, like for birthday, for celebration of friendship. I’m thinking of some of the different prayers that are in there. Again, difficult seasons, [inaudible 00:15:28].
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Seasons of the Christian year, oftentimes, we just don’t have a repertoire for that. And it makes things special. It kind of makes a moment special. So like for grad, there’s like a little liturgy for graduation. So, if you have a loved one who’s graduating, you can break out the book, you can open it up, and you can kind of pray a special prayer kind of celebrating that moment. And again, what’s beautiful is you can do it in your backyard, you can do it in your living room couch, the dinner table. Really, sky’s the limit.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, especially right now, we’re all kind of realizing that even though we can’t go to church or some of us, you know, depending on the size of our church and everything, like we can still do that in our homes.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, absolutely.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And I think that’s the heart behind it, and I think that just the timing of it is we need to empower the Body of Christ to be able to pray in… We are the church. And I like going to church and I like worshiping and large gathering as much as anyone else, but I think we’re all reminded in this moment that church is not a building, it’s not a steeple, it’s the people. And we are the people in church.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
The early church viewed homes as the domestic… The small church, the little church, was a term that was used often. And so, I think rediscovering that we are the church and that we can worship, whether we’re gathered corporately with a lot of other people or whether it’s just, what is the minimal? Two or three who are gathered in my name, there all be there in the midst. And this gives some prayers and… And it’s not the only thing, I just see it as an additional resource to equip people to be able to worship and pray together in the home and the more intimate spaces.
Heidi Wilcox:
Sure.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Small groups can use it. I could see small groups or bands or discipleship groups using it on Zoom calls. There’s a lot of ways that it can be used.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. And even if you’re by yourself, one of the things that you mentioned about liturgy is that it joins us with the Prayers of the Saints. And so we are in a community, even if we’re by ourselves right now.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Absolutely. And honestly, a lot of these prayers, as I was writing them and using them, it just kind of float out of just, you know, that just one-on-one with the Lord. So, it can totally be used whether… And I think that’s the thing, I do mention that in the introduction, whatever home is for you, maybe you’re a college student and you’re in a dorm room, you can use these prayers. These give you language for the different seasons of life, the highs and the lows. And again, I was very intentional to include prayers for difficult seasons and difficult times because oftentimes Christians don’t. We don’t have a framework or a language for that.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. How do both, because you do, like in your book you have liturgies that celebrate happy occasions like marriage or baptism, but you also have prayers that help us pray through difficult seasons like death, or a loved one or ourselves battling addiction. Why do we need both forms of prayer and how do these each type of prayer add to our spiritual practice?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the reality is, we don’t live on the mountain top, life’s lived in the valleys.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I wish it was, Winfield, I really do.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. And even the framework of the book, there’s prayers for kind of morning and evening prayer, there’s prayers for ordinary life, there’s prayers for special occasions again like Confirmation or a birthday, but then there are these prayers for difficult seasons, spiritual warfare, overcoming fear, mourning for those who mourn, for healing, or social conflict. I mean, my gosh, we’ve so many of these.
Heidi Wilcox:
Right? It encompasses all of 2020.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. There’s like 20 prayers in here that are like 2020 prayers for times of trouble, prayers for the downcast. And I think that’s the thing is I think liturgy reminds us of the realities of the Christian faith. It’s so easy just to focus on, again, the highs without forgetting that God’s with us in the valleys as well. And I think that’s the beauty of the Book of Psalms. There are these Psalms of laymen, there are these Psalms of celebration and worship, but there’s also Psalms to go through the valley of the shadow of death.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And there are days that, I mean, my gosh, we’ve all been through highs and lows over last few months, and sometimes we just don’t have prayers, and that’s where my hope and prayer for this is, that this helps give people language for what they’re experiencing in whatever season of life they find themselves.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Towards the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned that you wrote a lot of Living Room Liturgy in the closet, in your house. And a lot of it came about during like since March, since the pandemic started. What did you learn about God during the writing process for you? I guess I’m kind of thinking like, what do you know about God now that you didn’t know about him before you started writing the book?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think, yeah, I think the richness of being a Christian is, again, God’s with us in the diversity of the seasons of life. And again, he’s with us in the highs and the lows. And it’s easy to praise him on the mountain top.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And again, what has drawn me to the liturgy and to traditional prayers and written prayers is, again, there’s a richness I think, there’s a depth that oftentimes is missing when we’re just focused on praying however we feel in the moment. And I think we also miss God, in that because we don’t celebrate God for the… To have a liturgy for times of trouble reminds you to turn to God in times of trouble, to have a liturgy for those who mourn reminds you that it’s okay to name and turn to God with your mourning and your loss. And it’s helped me in that way, and I think that’s my prayer that it would help others as they struggle with various things.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And that’s where… To be honest, had we not, had I personally not gone through what I had gone through this year, I probably would not have leaned as heavily into the prayers and liturgies for difficult seasons. They probably would have been one or two, but as I got into it, I just kept pressing into it and thinking, “Wow, there should be a liturgy for the loss of a loved one, there should be a liturgy for layman, there should be a liturgy for social conflict. Well, we’ve experienced our share of that.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Why, because you said that this book had been kind of circling around you, you kind of had the idea for a while. Why was now the right time? Because, I mean, now that it’s coming out or it’s already out now, but you know, now that it came out in December, I mean, it is obviously the perfect book for this season. Why was now the right time for you to write that?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Well, again, I believe in the providence of God, and I’ve done some smaller books around like morning and evening prayer and some things like that. And for me was the timing, again, it was just the right time, you know?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And I had the space, I had the energy. For me as a writer, I mean, that’s kind of a whole nother conversation, but-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
We ride out of what we have a passion for, and I just felt a burden. Some of it was my own personal, like, “Hey, I’ve got some extra time. I’m stuck in my closet, I’m working,” and rather eating a bunch of ice cream and vegging out and watching Netflix, I’m going to [crosstalk 00:24:58]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Although there is a place for that, I’ll be honest.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
You know, I mean, yeah, there should be a liturgy for that, but for me, I just did a deep dive and just kind of went in the writing cave, if you will, and this is kind of what I came out with. And there’s a liturgy for mission, spiritual renewal. I’d stuck in some little liturgies in there on the earth and liturgy for the garden. You know, I encourage people, get outside, find God outside as well in a season where everyone’s kind of sheltered in place, like whether it’s just getting outside at night and looking at the moon or looking at the stars, even if you don’t have a big backyard, go for walks. And so again, these little prayers and words can be used in different places.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Liturgy definitely helps us slow down and celebrate the different seasons and even just the different moments of our every day. And you’ll have to help me with my next question, because I’m not super familiar with the church calendar, I should be, but Advent has… There’s a lot of liturgy if you’re church or you’re doing an Advent wreath in your home, and then we kind of switch to ordinary time. I’m not exactly sure when that happens, Winfield. So if you could help me with that, that would be great.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I kind of think of your big seasons or Advent leading up to Christmas, then you have epiphany, which is kind of this short season of life. That’s where you’re following the Wisemen as they’re going to find Jesus. It’s kind of looking for signs and stars. What a time for Advent? It’s a season of watching and waiting and looking for the Lord’s coming.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And then the other big season is Lent, which is just this 40 day period leading up into Easter Holy Week. And it just really prepares you for the resurrection, you kind of follow Jesus to the cross. And so, the seasons really add richness and meaning. Then you have Pentecost. You go into Pentecost, which, hallelujah, the Holy Spirit comes, and get your Holy Spirit fixed on. And the Spirit comes upon the church, the colors are red. And each season has colors and meaning. And ordinary time kind of coming out of that is really kind of, I think in terms of like summer going into falls, kind of just ordinary time.
Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so a church that kind of loosely follows the church calendar, that’s kind of a time of the year that they can preach on whatever, talk about other things, if you will. So, that’s kind of, I may or may not have answered your question, but-
Heidi Wilcox:
No, you’re good.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so, in the book there’s a section for Holy days and holidays, that people can kind of pray. It will help you celebrate those different seasons, whether you’re by yourself or as a family.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. As we start, because your podcast is really seen on December 22nd, so as we kind of, we’ll be right on the cusp of Christmas and then we’ll be looking forward to starting a new year. What are some ways that we can start incorporating liturgy into our daily lives, whether we’re an individual, a couple, or a family with kids?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
In a lot of what I do, I just encourage people to begin to practice morning and evening prayer. These are just carving out… The historic church, they’re key times, and you see this in the Old Testament, “I pray seven times a day,” Solomon says. And essentially, you could boil down these hours of prayer to morning and evening prayer. And these are kind of anchors for your day. You begin and end the day in prayer. I mean, you could pray throughout the day as Paul says, but these are more formal times where you can say, “You know what? When I first get up, I’m going to carve out, I’m going to read the scriptures, hear some prayers.” So, there’s a morning and evening prayer at the beginning of the book.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And then again, as you experience different occasions in life, you can open up the book and be like, “I wonder if there’s a liturgy for this.” And chances are, there’s going to be a lot of stuff in there for you.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
For graduation, celebration of a friendship. There’s a liturgy for the garden, which… That also hit me as I was writing it, it was spring. And again, we’re working from home and my wife and I were planting a garden and growing tomato plants, and I was like, “I should… You know what? This…” So, a lot of the stuff that’s in there was things that I personally had experienced or had thought through. Like, “Wow! We should have a liturgy for this,” you know? So that [crosstalk 00:30:09]-
Heidi Wilcox:
What does it-
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Go ahead.
Heidi Wilcox:
I’m sorry. What does it… Like, why does it matter if we pray while we’re gardening or starting school or things that we just kind of do every day?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Well, again, we take these moments for granted. And we’ve created in the West, a false bifurcation between the secular and the sacred. So, hey, we’re just going to ship our kids off to school and… No, these are celebratory moments in the ancient. I mean, I say the ancient, I mean, honestly, up until not too long ago, people had rituals for key moments in life. You know, you think of the Jewish people who have bar mitzvahs like for coming of age. And a lot of us because of the rootlessness in kind of Western culture, we don’t have rituals anymore. And what I mean by that is we don’t have prayers to celebrate the events of life. And even celebrating someone’s death there’s a passing of life, and we need language.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Part of a ritual is there’s language. To be able to celebrate and to remember, we have to have language. And that’s again, for me, why I think this matters. And again, you can take these, and maybe it’s just the scriptures that you find helpful, maybe you pray the little written prayer, and then you add your own prayer, or there’s a pause for a devotional thought, that you can kind of pause and reflect. If you’re with a group, you can actually share a little devotional moment if you want. You know, take these and make them your own, I think is what I would say. Is don’t think of this as like some stuffy dry, you have to follow this, it’s not a straight jacket. Liturgy is not a straight jacket, as I like to say. It gives us a structure for the spirit to move in our lives in a different type of way.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Just kind of creates that space that we can be still and communicate with God and listen to what he may be telling us as well.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Exactly. Well said.
Heidi Wilcox:
What would you say is the relation, because we’ve kind of been dancing all around my next question, so what is the relationship between liturgy and kind of the worship aspect? Because it is worship and discipleship.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yeah. I think worship, that’s again, I keep saying that these are the problems, I think worship is discipleship. And how we worship disciples us, whether we realize it or not. And if the worship songs are all about me, then it’s a cultural form of worship. And I think this is why I think written prayers can be helpful, things like the Lord’s Prayer, where these words that we say, they form us, what we speak, what we repeat, the habits, the daily habits of our lives. These are… I use the term ritual, in the sense of what we do regularly disciples us.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so, the words that we speak are a part of our discipleship. And so, that’s why one of the things I like about a liturgical service is again, you mentioned the Lord’s Prayer earlier, any liturgical service that you go into, anywhere in the world, will have the Lord’s Prayer. And there will be a moment in the service, whether it’s another language or not, you can identify that the Lord’s Prayer is being prayed and you can join in, in your own language. That’s pretty powerful if you think about it.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And then the same way, many of these prayers, the frameworks, for instance, the Lord’s Prayer, let’s say that, Christians have been saying that since the time of Christ. That’s significant to say, this is the family prayer. This is a prayer that Christians have prayed since the very beginning. That’s a, I think, just a beautiful reality. And that’s another reason I like, for instance, the Apostles Creed. It’s one of the shortest historic most ancient statements of the Christian faith. So, when we affirm that, we are standing with Christians throughout the ages who have affirmed that same affirmation of faith.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And so, I think that’s significant that it’s something we’ve lost in our culture, this continuity of being connected with the larger Body of Christ and the historic Body of Christ. Christianity, a lot of times we just say, “Oh, if we can just get back to Jesus, go back 2000 years.” Well, there’s been 2000 years of church history. Some of it’s been bad, I’ll admit that, however, we’re believers today because somebody passed the faith on to us, and nobody comes to faith in a vacuum. And so, that’s where I think these prayers remind us that we belong to the larger Body of Christ.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. And especially right now we need all the connection, belonging, and hope that we can get.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Yes. Amen to that. Yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
So, I just… Yeah. Yeah, Winfield. So, before we wrap up the interview, is there anything else that you would like to talk about that I didn’t know to ask already?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
No, I think that’s good. I think I’m… My hopes for the book is that this will help people bring prayer into their home and in their ordinary spaces of their life. Whether they’re single, whether they’re married, whether they have kids or grandkids, I really think this is applicable really for everyone.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And my open prayer for the book is that it’ll just help people worship and celebrate God in the ordinary moments of their lives and the ordinary places, that it will help homes become a place of worship where God is glorified and God becomes more real.
Heidi Wilcox:
Winfield, it is a beautiful book. And one thing that I really enjoyed as I kind of read through it, to prepare for this interview is, like I said, it gives words when I don’t always have the words, and I would assume that other people don’t always have the words, but it also kind of helps keep me focused, which is something that I also struggle with when I pray. So, I really appreciate you giving this gift, not just to me, but to all of us. And so, we’ll be sure to link it out in the show notes so that people can grab a copy for their ordinary or extraordinary moments in 2021.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Amen. Thank you, Heidi. Thanks for having me.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. No problem. And so we have one question that we ask everybody before we wrap up the show. So, because it’s called the Thrive With Asbury Seminary Podcast, what is one practice that is helping you thrive in your life right now?
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
One of the things I have alluded to it earlier, just get outside and walk. Earlier today I was, “Oh, man,” the last few days I’ve been like, “Oh, I’m getting cabin fever, I’m getting a little stressed out,” and I just drove up to Shaker Village and just did a quick walk around. There’s a little beautiful pond up there, it’s about a 15 minute drive, and I wasn’t there 30 minutes and just the clarity and just did wonders for the soul. And so, I think just getting outside, walking, like I said.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Like last night my daughter and I, Anabel, she’s got this new camera she’s working with, there’s beautiful full moon and she was out there taking pictures and was able to capture these beautiful pictures, and you could see kind of the crevices in the moon.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
And I think of so many people miss, again, back to that idea of just these ordinary, like get out and look at the stars at night. This morning I got up at seven and we looked on our back porch and the sunrise was absolutely incredible. The sky was just a beautiful shade of like orange and pink. And I think of how many people never look up to see the stars or the skies and to just see God in nature around them. And I think that’s one of the greatest gifts that’s so often overlooked. And there’s a couple of the prayers in the book that actually remind us of that, celebrating creation, celebrating a garden. So, get up [crosstalk 00:39:21], get some [crosstalk 00:39:22]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely. Even when it’s cold, bundle up, yeah.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Bundle up and do it.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely worth it. Well, thanks so much Winfield. I really enjoyed our conversation as always, and appreciate you being part of the podcast.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Amen. Thanks so much, Heidi. Have a wonderful day.
Heidi Wilcox:
You too.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast with Dr. Winfield Bevins. His book, Living Room Liturgy, really is a gift to all of us, especially during this pandemic and Christmas season. It allows us to find holy moments in the ordinary, and they’re always there, but it gives us space to actually see these moments. It also provides us with a sense of connection, hope, and belonging. So, be sure to grab a copy, we’ll link it out in the show notes, so be sure to grab a copy for yourself, make a good gift for your friends, or your family. And I just hope that it provides a sense of hope to you as you read through the liturgy in the coming days.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
As always, you can follow us in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @AsburySeminary. From all of us on the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast team, we wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas, and pray that the presence of Immanuel dwells in you richly this Christmas season and in the year ahead.
Dr. Winfield Bevins:
Thank you so much for letting us be part of your life and what you listen to. We don’t take that for granted and we just… We couldn’t do this podcast without you, and we appreciate you all so very much. So, until next time, Merry Christmas and happy New Year.
