Recently I had the joy of joining about 80 women from across the country on Conversations with Daughters, a Zoom gathering for The Order of the Daughters of the King hosted by Carol Townsend. It was season 3, episode 26, and I was the guest.
When Carol opened the call, she pointed out the three words that have shaped this blog for years… read. pray. serve. And she said that if that doesn’t speak to Daughters, she doesn’t know what does. The Daughters live by a Rule of Prayer and a Rule of Service, with a mission of prayer, service, and evangelism. So it felt like we’d been speaking the same language all along.
And I’m no stranger to the Daughters, at least in the Diocese of Central Florida. I’ve had the opportunity to speak at a Daughters’ Deanery meeting and at one of their diocese retreats.
Carol opened with a line from Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts that set the tone for the whole conversation: “Healing rarely happens all at once. But it does come, one sacred rhythm at a time.”
You can watch the full conversation below. And below that, I’ve pulled together some highlights from what we talked about, along with a few extra thoughts I didn’t make it onto the call.
from charismatic roots to the Episcopal Church
02:21
Carol started by asking me to introduce myself, and I admitted something right up front. I still consider myself a little newer to the Episcopal Church. I grew up in a very non-denominational, independent, charismatic kind of church.
My best friend and I always talked about doing ministry together. We even talked about planting a church at one point. Then he went off and became an Episcopal priest, which made some waves back in those old circles. When he landed in Mount Dora, he kept after me… “Hey, when are you going to move the family up and do ministry with me?”
So a little over five years ago, we did. I started doing youth ministry at St. Edward’s Episcopal Church in Mount Dora, just north of Orlando, and I’ve been there ever since. The more I got in, the more I fell in love with the traditions, the sacredness, and the meaning behind every little thing we do in the liturgy. That led me to pursue ordination, and next month I’ll mark two years as a deacon in the Diocese of Central Florida.
what 2020 taught me about worship
The real turning point came in a crazy year. 2020, anyone?
With COVID, racial tensions, and politics swirling everywhere, my wife and I would go to church and think, “I just want to go get some Jesus.” But in a very emotionally driven church, everything going on in society bleeds right into everything, and you hear everybody’s opinion about it.
Then we’d visit our friends for a weekend and go to church with them. And what would we hear? Readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament, and a Gospel. Then a sermon based on those readings.
I felt like we got more Jesus in 75 minutes of worship there than I did in the last six months at my church back home.
I started studying to understand what was going on. It wasn’t just the readings or my friend’s sermons. As I dug in, I realized how intentional every single element of the liturgy is. And the more I learned, the more I fell in love with it.
I also want to be clear about something I said on the call. When I talk about my past church experience, I’m not trying to bash anything. It just filters and frames how I’ve seen and experienced things.
bonus thoughts
One thing I’ve come to appreciate about my whole church journey is how much beauty there is in the diversity of worship styles. The charismatic (or Pentecostal) churches I was used to leaned heavily on being in touch with the Holy Spirit. And that experience has served me well in the Episcopal Church too. I see the Spirit moving in so many beautiful ways, especially in how our youth worship and pray.
In my youth ministry role, I’ve had the chance to connect with youth ministers in our area from a wide variety of denominations and backgrounds. And they’re all amazing! I feel at home in the Episcopal and Anglican tradition. It brings a richness and balance I’d love for more people to experience. But wherever you call home, I’d encourage you to step outside your own tradition every once in a while. Grab coffee or do a Bible study with friends who go to another church. See how they pray and how they relate to the Word. You’ll likely find it’s mutually beneficial. Let iron sharpen iron (Proverbs 27:17).
a resource and a catalyst
08:15
I get really geeked up about our youth at St. Edward’s. They’re so hungry for the Word, for connecting in prayer, and for learning about their traditions. When I asked them what they wanted to study, they said, “Hey, can you take us in the sanctuary and slow the liturgy down and explain things to us?”
That hunger is part of how I came to know the Daughters. I meet about once a month with other youth ministers around our diocese, and through those connections I started learning about Junior Daughters. I thought, wow, I may have some young ladies who’d be interested in that. We now have a new Daughters chapter starting at St. Edward’s, and Junior Daughters may be a natural next step. Carol also shared about Gen Zoom, a new ministry for Gen Z and Millennial Daughters.
Carol asked how I see the role of clergy when working with groups like the Daughters or a youth group. I said I like to think of myself first as a resource. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most educated theological scholar. But I can find answers to questions. And I can be there to pray and support.
More than that, though, I like to think of myself as a catalyst. My youth didn’t come up with the idea of studying the liturgy all on their own. I plant some seeds every once in a while and see how I can stir up the Spirit in them to be hungry and go deeper.
It’s like my own kids at home. They’ll say they’re hungry, look around, decide there’s nothing to eat, and settle for a peanut butter sandwich. Meanwhile, there’s a casserole left over from last night that was just delicious. Peanut butter sandwiches have their place. But it’s also good to sit down to a full meal.
Carol picked up on something I hadn’t quite said out loud. I have no problem saying, “I don’t know, let’s find out together.” She called those some of the most holy words. I think she’s right.
bonus thoughts
Slowing down the liturgy with our youth was beautiful! It gave us space to stop, think, and talk about what’s happening and why it matters. We talked about that thing people do with their thumb on their forehead, lips, and chest at the start of the Gospel reading (and whether everyone is supposed to do it or not). We talked about where the practice of preaching from the readings comes from. And we talked about why the peace isn’t just a social moment in the middle of the service, because it carries some real theological weight.
In the end, it brought a deeper understanding to everything we do, from the moment we walk in the doors through the dismissal (and beyond). And that understanding makes it all more meaningful when we pray the liturgy in real time on Sunday mornings. Those conversations became a seven-session study called Lift Up Your Hearts: A Step-by-Step Journey Through the Eucharist.
Letting people lead with their own questions is such an important part of learning. I can teach what I think they need to know. But the things they’re curious about end up connecting them to the real depth. When I do Bible study with our youth, the most important thing to me is teaching them how to study the Scriptures, then letting them dig in with their own questions, perspectives, and life experiences. That’s what makes the Scriptures come alive for them. And it has far more staying power than me just telling them what to think about what the Bible says. (If you want to learn that process yourself, check out my guide to studying the Bible.)
confession is a “we” thing
15:47
In my old church, it wasn’t unusual to sing for an hour, then hear an hour of sermon on whatever topic the pastor chose. We could be there for two and a half hours. Carol mentioned something I wrote about in Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts… the pressure to perform. The pressure to always be happy and joyful and tell everyone that God is doing great things in your life. That can get overwhelming.
One of the beautiful things I’ve found in the liturgy is confession. Every Sunday morning, we confess together. And here’s what’s amazing about it. We don’t say, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” We say we’re sorry. We’ve fallen short.
I can look at the person next to me and know that, listen, I’m not alone. Even if I’ve fallen short in some way this week, so have they. And we’re in this together.
We’re both there together, approaching God and asking for forgiveness and help to get through. It’s a community thing, not just an individual experience. I think a lot of the Church misses that, because faith can become a very individual experience. But if we pay attention, the liturgy has that nailed pretty good.
bonus thoughts
Honestly, this one hits me every week now. Ever since I started paying attention to the fact that confession is something we do together, I can’t unsee it.
I think it pushes right back against our very Western culture of individualism, which puts so much pressure on each of us to carry everything on our own. Saying “we” every Sunday gets me looking beyond my own circumstances, and not just during confession. It reminds me in so many areas of life that we’re all part of a greater community together.
But here’s the bigger shift for me. In the confession, we say, “We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” That’s not just a room full of individuals each admitting we’ve fallen short and should do better. It’s the church, as a whole, admitting that we haven’t loved our neighbors well.
So that line has become a question I carry out the doors with me. How can our church, together, show up and love our neighbors? How can we be a blessing to our community? Like I wrote in Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts, it’s not about guilt. It’s about guidance. The confession doesn’t leave us stuck in what we got wrong. It points us toward who we’re called to be together. And it’s no accident that the service ends by sending us out to love and serve the Lord.
That’s what the “we” does. It helps us know we’re not alone in our struggles. And it gives us a collective identity and purpose. We fall short together, we’re forgiven together, and we’re sent out together to love the people around us.
the liturgy is the heartbeat of God
17:54
One of the Daughters on the call had read the book and invited me to keynote a diocesan Daughters retreat last spring. She asked me to talk about what struck her most… the idea of the liturgy becoming a heartbeat.
Coming from my background, it was easy to think the liturgy was just routine. The same prayers, the same words, every week. But I started to realize something is happening on a couple of levels.
First, there’s the service itself. Yes, it’s routine. But it’s rhythmic. We’re invited into God’s presence at the beginning. We hear the Word, and we hear about the Word. We confess. We pray the prayers of the people. We share the peace. It becomes a rhythm where I can almost feel it… bump bump, bump bump.
Then there’s the bigger rhythm of the whole year. The liturgical new year starts in Advent. Advent brings a certain feeling, and it leads into Christmas, then Epiphany, then ordinary time. Then Ash Wednesday, all of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Then we move through the season after Pentecost… and then we start all over again.
I think back to my old church. We’d go from Palm Sunday… “Hosanna!”… straight to Easter Sunday… “He is risen!” And we’d miss the whole roller coaster of everything in between.
I once walked our youth through the Advent prayers, digging deep into the scriptures behind them. When we finished, I asked what they thought. They told me they finally understood the reason for the season. And they didn’t mean Christmas. They meant Advent, and that’s different. They start seeing (and feeling) the heartbeat.
It’s not like a heartbeat. It is a heartbeat. It’s the heartbeat of God.
That’s where the idea for Holy Rhythms for Hurting Hearts came from. It’s those rhythms and cycles that keep bringing us to the places we need to be. A few folks in the chat put it beautifully… it’s rhythmic, it’s comforting, and it makes order out of chaos.
bonus thoughts
I don’t know that I have one favorite Advent collect. But I love slowing down and really diving into them. When we did this with our youth, we studied each prayer the same way we dig into the Scriptures in our Bible studies… slowly and methodically. We paid close attention to each word and what it means. We reflected on what the prayer is trying to say, and then what it means for us.
It’s easy to read a prayer like that and think, “Oh, that’s beautiful.” It’s something else to walk away thinking, “This means something to me.”
And here’s what we usually find in those Advent prayers. The rest of our culture is running a million miles an hour with all the shopping, parties, travel, and preparations, which can bring a lot of stress and anxiety. But there’s something about Advent that’s about slowing down, being reflective, and looking toward something… the coming of the Savior we need.
Our youth came up with some incredible insights along the way. Like noticing that in the first Sunday’s collect, light defeats darkness not through some struggle or fight, but simply by existing. Or that when we ask Christ to find “a mansion prepared for himself” in us, that’s a mansion… not a little 2/1 condo. He wants all of us. (I wrote about the whole Advent prayers study here.)
They loved studying those Advent collects so much that they asked to do the same thing for Lent. That’s another season where those prayers can be extremely powerful. (Here’s the Lenten prayers study too.)
So here’s my invitation this Advent. Each week, take that Sunday’s collect (you’ll find them starting on page 211 of the Book of Common Prayer) and sit with it slowly:
- Read it a few times, out loud if you can.
- Pay attention to each word. What is it saying?
- Reflect on what the prayer is asking of God, and what it’s asking of you.
- Ask what it means for your life this week.
Pray it every day that week, and let it slow you down while everything else speeds up. That’s the rhythm Advent invites us into.
a rule of life starts small
24:00
One of the Daughters shared how much the rule of life ideas in my book resonated with her, especially the way I look back to St. Benedict and the sixth century. Daughters already have a rule of life built around prayer, service, and evangelism. She wanted to hear more about how I approach it.
I’m not one for saying you have to have this, and this, and this. I love how the Daughters have some of that built into their core identity. But when I talk with our youth or other parishioners about a rule of life, my advice is simple… just find something. Grab something and start.
If you’re not reading the Bible, start reading it. Or read a book about the Bible or about God. Spend some time in prayer. Find something easy that you can do on a regular basis, and then build on that.
why I built The Rhythm
During my discernment process for ordination, I really got into the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. But some of those liturgies can take a while. Listen, I’m married, I’ve got five kids, I’ve got a job, I’m a deacon at the church, I’ve got my youth ministry, and a million other things going on. Sometimes it’s hard to take 30 minutes a couple of times a day for those prayers.
Right after those offices in the Prayer Book, there’s a section called Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families. It’s the same rhythmic kind of thing… morning, noonday, early evening, and close of day… but in a much shorter form.
So I built a little web app called The Rhythm to bring those prayers to your phone. We carry our phones everywhere. We don’t always carry our Book of Common Prayer.
The rubrics for those devotions also let you swap in a Psalm or reading from the Daily Office lectionary. So I built that in. If I’ve got a few extra minutes and want to pray the Gospel with my morning or noonday prayer, it’s just a tap and boom, it’s right there. You can also add notes when you finish a prayer.
During the call, I shared my screen and showed my notes from Evening Prayer that very day. I’d written that I was praying especially for the Order of the Daughters of the King that night.
Since I started building and testing it, I’ve been nailing my morning, noon, evening, and Compline prayers almost every single day. It’s been amazing.
But don’t try to do all four every day right out of the gate. Start with one. Morning Prayer, or whichever one is easiest to fit into your schedule. Get that rhythm going, and then add another. Maybe one of those times isn’t a prayer at all. Maybe it’s reading the Bible a chapter at a time.
Carol added something I really appreciated. She said it’s okay to admit that prayer is hard. It’s okay to look at each other and say, “I just need some help praying.” Maybe all the time, or maybe just in this season. Having something in hand can really help.
how to get The Rhythm on your phone
The Rhythm isn’t in the App Store or Google Play yet. It’s still pretty new, and I wanted to get it out there and test it before jumping through all those hoops. But it works on iPhone and Android right now.
- On your phone, go to therhythm.bibledude.life.
- Look for the button that says “Keep the rhythm close” and tap “Add to home screen.”
- Follow the couple of quick steps it walks you through.
From there, it works just like any other app. You can also find it anytime under “Apps” in the menu here at BibleDude.life.
bonus thoughts
A few of the things I showed on the call are part of The Rhythm’s supporter membership, so here’s a quick look at what’s available:
- No account needed: Open the app and pray whatever prayer fits this moment, along with the Collect of the Day.
- Free account: All four daily prayers, the full Library of 82 prayers and thanksgivings, the collects, “Your rhythm,” and installing it on your phone.
- Supporter membership (starting at $3 a month): Today’s Psalms and readings from the Daily Office Lectionary, canticles and the Apostles’ Creed in the morning, “My Prayers” for the people and needs on your heart, and private, searchable notes.
I’d love for all of it to be completely free. But the technology behind it does cost a little to run, and I refuse to fill a prayer app with random ads. So I’ve worked to keep the cost low while keeping the heart of it free for everyone. If you choose to become a supporter, thank you. It helps me keep building tools like this to support people in their journey of faith.
You can read more about how The Rhythm works (and why it will never send you a single notification) in this post about praying the hours.
I Will, With God’s Help
32:05
Carol asked about my book I Will, With God’s Help, an 8-week study of the Baptismal Covenant.
It started a couple of years ago with our youth. We had a confirmation coming up and a couple of youth getting baptized, so we decided to study the Baptismal Covenant together. That study went so well. Like a lot of the studies I do with our youth, my biggest problem was getting them to stop talking. Youth group would run long, and I’d have parents waiting outside because the kids wouldn’t stop talking about the Bible and what it means to them. That’s an amazing problem to have as a youth minister.
Another deacon in our diocese, now a priest, sat in on a few of those sessions. She was blown away, and she asked me when I was going to do the same thing for the adults. Because we all need it.
So I kept digging. The Baptismal Covenant has eight pieces. First come the questions about believing in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, where we essentially recite the Apostles’ Creed in response. Then come the commitments we answer with, “I will, with God’s help.” Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? I will, with God’s help.
The study breaks those eight pieces into eight weeks, with six days of activities each week:
- Days 1 through 4: Bible studies with specific scriptures that help frame what each piece really means. When we talk about God as Father, what does that really mean?
- Day 5: A more contemplative time with a Psalm. It’s not about breaking down the original language. It’s a time to kick back and soak it in.
- Day 6: A challenge to step into applying it. If I’m really going to live this out as part of my Baptismal Covenant, what does that mean? Sometimes it’s as simple as writing a letter to someone you haven’t talked to in a while.
When we talked, I was finishing up the study again with our youth, because we had nine kids getting confirmed that Sunday during our bishop’s visit. And again, they just love it. They eat it up.
bonus thoughts
I Will, With God’s Help is a great study for anyone considering baptism or confirmation. But it’s also a great fit for anyone discerning a call to the Daughters of the King, since a Daughter’s vows reaffirm the promises made at Baptism and Confirmation. And honestly, it’s a great study for any Christian who wants to dig deeper into what it really means to be a Christian.
I designed it so it works well for personal study. But it also includes resources for anyone who wants to lead it as a small group, which makes it a natural fit for a Daughters chapter. Everyone works through the daily studies on their own during the week. Then once a week, the group gathers to discuss the key ideas and what they got out of it. The group discussion questions are all in the appendix.
You can learn more about I Will, With God’s Help here.
writing as a spiritual practice
35:59
Carol made a great point. There’s nothing I’m doing that the Daughters can’t do too. I started with a blog, which is basically journaling and then deciding to share some of those thoughts. For Carol, longhand journaling is one of the ways she gets closer to God, because writing things down gives her time to process.
I started this blog a little over 19 years ago. It turns 20 in February! Back then I was working in young adult ministry and teaching a lot, so I had a lot going out. I was also taking classes at a small Bible school and studying theology, so I had a lot coming in. The blog became the outlet where I could process all of it.
For a while, it felt a little aimless… just a bunch of rambling notes. Then I came across Blog Action Day, when bloggers all around the world wrote on one topic on the same day. That year the topic was poverty. And I thought, “Oh, here we go. I’m a Christian. I’m supposed to care about stuff like that, right?”
As I dug in, my head was spinning. Poverty leads into so many other issues. Human trafficking isn’t just a trafficking issue. At its core, it’s a poverty issue too. While looking for faith-based solutions, I found an Episcopal and Anglican rooted organization doing work in microfinance. Those are the small loans that help one woman buy a sewing machine and start earning money as a seamstress.
I wrote about them and let them know. They got excited that a blogger was writing about them, so they started sharing stories with me. Then they asked if I wanted to go on a trip with them. I went to Kenya and Uganda and worked with some of the students in their microfinance programs. I kept daily trip journals and blogged the whole experience.
Long story short, that became my first book, The Unlikely Missionary: From Pew-Warmer to Poverty-Fighter. In the end, writing was how I worked out my faith. It could be a handwritten journal nobody ever sees, or it could be online. Either way, writing and telling those stories has helped me form my own ideas of what it means to be a Christian and how to live out my faith.
old journals and two brothers
One of the Daughters on the call shared that when she became a diocesan president, she was terrified. So she started writing things down. Now she journals every morning and can’t put it down. It’s become a way to focus her prayer life.
That reminded me of my wife. She’s got a stack of old journals too, full of notes. Sometimes it’s just a little random thought, and she doesn’t even know if it has any relevance.
Of our five kids, two are biological and three are adopted. At one point we had our two biological kids and had already adopted one. Then we were asked about adopting two brothers. Obviously, a lot of prayer and discernment goes into a decision like that.
So what did my wife do? She pulled out her old journals and started flipping through them. And she kept landing on notes she’d thought had no meaning… notes that fit the exact situation we were facing. There was so much confirmation in those old journals that helped us make that decision.
And yes, we’ve got two more boys now.
bonus thoughts
If you’ve never tried writing as a spiritual practice, don’t overthink it. Get a journal (maybe one of those little blue DoK notebooks!) and just start writing whatever is on your heart. It doesn’t have to be polished. Nobody else ever has to see it.
One simple way to start is to write right after you pray. What came up while you were praying? Who’s on your mind? What are you thankful for, or worried about? That’s actually why I added a notes feature at the end of each prayer in The Rhythm. Sometimes the most meaningful words come right after the “Amen.”
And like my wife discovered, you never know when something you wrote years ago will turn out to be exactly what you need today.
If you feel like God might be nudging you to share your writing online, I’d love to help with that too. Helping writers and ministries build their own websites and blogs is what I do professionally at Fistbump Media. If you want to talk through your options, just click “Talk to us” at the top of the site to set up a free consult.
I’m just a dude
50:01
Near the end of the call, Carol said something that made me smile. She said she didn’t want to talk me down, but I’m not really a very special guy. There’s nothing I’m doing that the Daughters can’t do too.
And she’s exactly right. I’m just a dude. Nothing special.
But I do kind of feel like I’m a testimony to what God can do with somebody who just says, “You know what, here I am. Just use me, God.” Carol added that those who are ordained are people too, full of faults and problems, who just happen to have a different job. (And if you want to read about people who literally put themselves up on pedestals, she suggested looking up the Stylites among the desert fathers. Ha!)
And honestly, that’s my encouragement for every Daughter, and for anyone reading this. God isn’t looking for super-Christians. He’s looking for willing ones.
The Daughters have a well-known motto that I can’t stop thinking about since our conversation:
I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.
That’s the same invitation I tried to share all night. You don’t have to do everything. Pick one prayer. Read one chapter. Write one page. Serve one neighbor. Start there, and let God build the rhythm.
Because healing rarely happens all at once. But it does come, one sacred rhythm at a time.
Thank you, Carol, and thank you to every Daughter who joined us. I was praying for you that night, and I’m still praying for you now.
Start praying with The Rhythm at therhythm.bibledude.life.
Learn more about The Order of the Daughters of the King. Want me to speak with your chapter, retreat, or parish? Reach out to me here.
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