A. Mission
Running in Faith is a personal interpretation of scripture, written by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church to help readers take their Sunday faith into their weekday lives.
"Authors" includes both members and friends of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church. Authors may contribute on a regular schedule, or without a formal schedule as the Spirit leads them from time to time.
B. Devotion
1. Format
The standard format is a scripture, the message, and a prayer. The scripture and prayer are set off from the message by spacing and text style, without separate titles. Authors are encouraged to use the standard format. It is the author's responsibility to identify any non-standard format requirements when submitting the Devotion.
2. Content
Selection of scripture, message, and prayer are the sole responsibility of the author. Try to select the scripture before writing the devotion. Otherwise the author becomes vulnerable to selecting a text outside of its intended context.
Authors are encouraged to draw upon their personal experiences to bring insights of faith to our readers. Some authors may seek to arouse our readers and have them say, "Wow, I never thought of it that way!" Other authors may seek to re-assure our readers in their decisions of faith by seeing how God acts in our lives.
Before starting to write, consider what it is that you want to say and how to present that information. For everyone to get the message, you must choose your rhetoric carefully. The question is not what you think you are saying, but what your audience actually hears. It is best to present a carefully reasoned, well researched message, avoiding use of potentially inflammatory language that may divert attention from your message.
Since the Devotions are published by Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, authors should respect Abiding Presence Lutheran Church as a welcoming home with positive Christian values. Where possible, try to express the message within the core teachings of the Lutheran Church.
Here are some questions common to devotional writers to aid in the writing of a devotion after selecting a biblical text :
- Why did you select this text? What is your motivation for using this text (current events, personal experience/struggle, community/congregational life, etc.)?
- What do you think God is doing here? (In other words, what's going on in this reading? What's God up to?)
- What do you hear God saying to you personally? (What is God saying about your life, relationships, work, etc. in this reading? What is God saying to you about what you're called to be or do?)
- What do you hear God saying to the devotional readers? (as individuals, a congregation, community, nation?) How is God calling, challenging, directing, forgiving, and loving us in this reading?
(The last three questions are a paraphrase from Kelly A. Fryer's No Experience Necessary Bible Study: Help Wanted, Unit 1 [Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005] p.13.)
Scriptures are usually taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. When other versions are used, authors should identify the Bible version.
3. Citations
Authors should provide appropriate citation for material excerpted from other sources. For shorter excerpts, the name of the source may be sufficient; longer excerpts may require name of source, publisher name and date. Authors are encouraged to avoid copying long sections of material from other sources. It is better, to use a short excerpt and provide a reference for the reader to follow.
4. Length
Authors are encouraged to keep the Devotion to no more than a single typewritten page to facilitate printing the Devotion, around 500 words.
5. Distribution
Distribution of the Devotion, via email or on the web, should enable the objective of taking one's Sunday faith into the workweek. Devotions may also be distributed, at the choosing of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, as printed hardcopy, CDs or other forms where available. Please remember that what you write is published under the name of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church and could be read by a potentially very large and diverse audience.
C. Authorization
All Devotions become the property of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church after submission. Abiding Presence Lutheran Church reserves final decision as to when, how, or if to use the Devotions. Permission is granted to authors to use their Devotions as desired, including permission to publish elsewhere.
D. Background
Dee T. writes, "Running in Faith was my inspiration after becoming acquainted with some e-mail devotions available at the time. I think we originally started out during Advent to see if it would "fly" and whether we could find writers who would agree to submit a Devotion about once every 10 weeks. The first few years we also printed a booklet of the devotions, annually, for people without computer access. I continue to be amazed by what the writers are inspired to write!" The name was chosen with the thought that we take our Sunday faith and worship and run with it into our daily ministry."
Running in Faith first appeared as a regular offering in November 1999, with the initial intent of distribution via email. Since email was still pretty cutting edge at the time, this put Abiding Presence Lutheran Church in the vanguard of electronic ministry. Distribution via email continued through July 23, 2006.
Starting July 30, 2006, email distributionof the Devotion was replaced with a weekly email reminder that the Devotion was available on the APLC website. This enabled us to offer a single, standard format using all of the web resources.
All of the Devotions, since November 1999, are currently available on the Abiding Presence Lutheran Church web site. The Abiding Presence Lutheran Church web site was started in 1995, one of the first church sites on the internet.
Over the years, several format variations have been used, somewhat randomly. The current format brings Abiding Presence Lutheran Church in conformance with the format used by several other publishers of similar devotions, such as "Christ In Our Home" from the Augsburg Fortress.
Devotions were available as a printed booklet, co-incident with the liturgical year of December to November. As individual devotions became longer, the yearly booklet became somewhat unwieldy and printing was suspended after the 2004 booklet.
Some Style Suggestions
with thanks to Susan and the Chicago Manual of Style
- book titles in italics or underline
- magazine titles in italics
- magazine article titles in quotation marks
- chapters from a book, quotes around chapter title followed by "In" in roman and the title of the whole book in italics
- books of the Bible, use upper case: Genesis, Romans, etc.
- set quotes inside quotation marks
- If a prose quote is less than 8 or 10 typed lines, then usually it is run into the text, and if longer, it is set off from the text. If poetry is quoted, then it is run into the text if 2 or less lines, and set off if more than 2 lines. If the quote is run into text, it is surrounded by quotations; if it is set off, there is no need for quotations.
- I can't find the reference in my manual right now, but I think when you use a quoted text as an introduction to a piece of writing (as the scripture passage is for the Devotions), then it is okay to put it in italics and I assume to set off the prayer at the end in the same way. I will check for this again when I have time.
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