Jill Crainshaw, Author at PrayTellBlog

Jill Crainshaw is professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Crainshaw emphasizes in her writing and teaching how Christian worship and leadership arise from and return to human experience. Her newest book, When I in Awesome Wonder: Liturgy Distilled from Everyday Life (The Liturgical Press, September 2017), explores how worship’s sacramental elements such as bread, wine, and water are connected to local fields and farmers, waters and artisans. Crainshaw’s teaching focuses on intersections between religious leadership and sustainability, social justice, and “grounded” human experiences. Crainshaw is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Rock Us Into Joy

December 13, 2019 Jill Crainshaw 5_

We pray for strength and courage, for wisdom to seek Your ways.

Advent Porch Light Liturgy

December 2, 2019 Jill Crainshaw

During Advent, perhaps we can turn on a porch light and welcome someone home.

Be Ye Kind to One Another

November 13, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Liturgical Spirituality

I pray that Christian worship practices cultivate kindness—birth it in its most radical and world-changing forms in the marrow of our bones.

The Writing Work of the People

October 1, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Teaching Liturgy

Words are powerful. How we use words in worship matters.

Creation, Day Three: Soil Underneath Our Fingernails

September 26, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Environment and Ecology

The Genesis verses that depict Day Three of Creation invite us to plumb unexpected sacramental depths.

Shoe Polish, Gospel Gratitude and the First Day of School

August 26, 2019 Jill Crainshaw

Christians can impact what happens in schools is by embodying one of the Gospel’s most powerful gifts: gratitude.

Colors against the Night

July 2, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Liturgical Spirituality

Our rituals—both those that reside within religious traditions and those that arise out of everyday life and communal histories—remind us of who we are.

Teaching Memories

June 4, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Liturgical Spirituality

The point of embodied remembering is not so much to sharpen our recollection of historical detail as it is to connect us to others who have dug in this dirt, walked on this earth, and danced in this place before.

risus paschalis: when dust laughs

April 22, 2019 Jill Crainshaw Liturgical year

Risus paschalis means “the Easter laugh.” The pastor of the United Church of Christ congregation I attended some years ago had a practice of telling

Savoring Gethsemane Places

April 18, 2019 Jill Crainshaw

Gethsemane midwifes agony. Gethsemane also midwifes the balm of Gilead.

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