We use these Psalms and Prayers as Responsive Readings and Prayers in our own service of worship each week. Psalms and Prayers are dated according to when we first used them in our worship service. We add the Lord's Prayer to each prayer, and we also affirm our faith by reciting the Apostles Creed in our traditional worship service. You might like to see our sample worship bulletin to see how we use these Psalms and Prayers in our worship service. We also use an insert in our bulletin with a brief lesson on the International Bible Lessons for that week (also called Uniform Bible Lessons) that has five questions on the reverse side for further study during the week. These can be easily printed for use in your own service of worship, Sunday school class, or private study during the week.

These Responsive Readings from the Psalms and the prayers are freely provided for your use, and you do not need to give us credit for their use should you use them in your own public service of worship or with other groups. In our worship bulletin, these Psalms and Prayers easily fit in the left hand side of the bulletin, and we have abridged the Psalms, or shortened or lengthened prayers, to fit easily in our church bulletin. The length of each Psalm and Prayer should be easy for you to use in your own bulletin as well.

If you conduct your worship service without a bulletin (or choose not to read the Psalms responsively), you can easily read the abridged Psalms we have provided here as a short Call to Worship instead of responsively (omitting the Leader and People, and reading the Psalm straight through as printed here).

Please note: all the Responsive Readings and Prayers on the A Psalm and A Prayer website are copyrighted by L.G. Parkhurst, Jr., Pastor of Stonegate Church, so please do not compile or edit these into other forms for profit. These are a free gift from our congregation to you for your own not for profit public or private use.

Even though the format for A Psalm and A Prayer is in the form of a Responsive Reading, you can easily read A Psalm and A Prayer as a brief devotional before praying the prayer that goes with the reading. We have edited and omitted parts of the Psalms to best suit our worship service, so you may want to read the Psalm in your own Bible and compile and edit the Psalm in the best way to suit your own worship service and style. May these readings from the Psalms and these Prayers bless you as they have blessed us in worship.

Though we have a substantial collection of Psalms and Prayers, currently we are creating new Responsive Readings from the Psalms and writing new prayers beginning with Psalm 1. Some of the older Responsive Readings and Prayers on A Psalm and A Prayer begin with Psalm 119 through Psalm 150. If you find these worship resources helpful to you, we would love to hear from you. Send us an e-mail at Psalms or visit us in worship at Stonegate Church. These Responsive Readings are often freely adapted and condensed from the Psalms using the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

For twenty years our pastor has provided weekly Bible Lessons for The Oklahoman newspaper based on the International Sunday School Lessons. These Bible Study Lessons can be used for private Bible Study or as short devotional readings in a meeting. Each lesson also includes Class Discussion Questions for a Bible class. For additional Bible Study materials on the Uniform Bible Lesson Series, visit the Bible Lesson Forum. Each Bible Lesson is formatted in three different ways and can be easily printed for class handouts. If you prefer Bible Class Discussions using the Bible alone, consider using the new Easy Bible Lessons and begin with the Christmas Story as you study The Gospel According to Luke. The Bible Text and five easy discussion questions are freely available on each easily printed handout for class or personal study. You might also enjoy using A Psalm and A Prayer readings and prayers to begin your Sunday School Class or Bible Study Group. You might also enjoy reading the Parkhurst Ponders blog.

A recommended Bible Study Tool

We also recommend the free e-book
Prayer Steps to Serenity The Twelve Steps Journey:
The 12 Steps in 12 Days

We also recommend these books by our pastor: Prayer Steps to Serenity: Daily Quiet Time Edition and Prayer Steps to Serenity the Twelve Steps Journey: New Serenity Prayer Edition. See which edition is best for you. We sponsor Serenity Groups for use in any home, church, or fellowship.

© Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008 by L.G. Parkhurst, Jr.
E-mail us at: PRAYERS@STONEGATECHURCH.ORG