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.).

Through a Glass, Dimly

May 18, 2020 Jill Crainshaw c_THEOLOGY

COVID-19 Shaping Spiritual Communities COVID-19 dwells in the space between us. So we keep our distance. One nursing home in Cincinnati plans to use plexiglas

“Who Cooked the Last Supper?”

April 9, 2020 Jill Crainshaw

“Who cooked the Last Supper?” This question caught my attention when I saw it as the title of a a 2001 book by Rosalind Miles—Who Cooked the

With Our Eyes on the Sparrows: A Lenten Reflection for Uncertain Days

April 1, 2020 Jill Crainshaw Amen Corner c_THEOLOGY

Sparrows love the camellia bush just outside our back door. The bush bloomed with extraordinary enthusiasm this spring. Maybe the sparrows just can’t get enough

Sacred Scatteredness

March 17, 2020 Jill Crainshaw c_THEOLOGY

We may be scattered, but we are not alone. Listen! A sower went out to sow. Matthew 13:3b As this broken bread was scattered

Dust

February 25, 2020 Jill Crainshaw

I am dust; to dust I shall always return. But don’t assume as you disturb my rest with your omnipotent kitchen broom that I am

Photo by Jill Crainshaw, February 4, 2020

Wild Winter Liturgies

February 5, 2020 Jill Crainshaw

The cedar waxwings arrived yesterday. Waxwings are wonderful, mysterious birds. Here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, their visits are brief. They come to our backyard for

Rock Us Into Joy

December 13, 2019 Jill Crainshaw

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.

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