Another newspaper article. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

This past Sunday in Tavistock many churches celebrated in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by participating in the annual pulpit exchange. Every year, for one Sunday, the local pastors switch pulpits and bring their preaching, teaching and speaking styles to a new congregation. Parishioners that are used to their minister in clerical robes get to see someone in plain clothes, pastors that are used to giving one sermon get to speak twice at some of our local double charges and it can no longer be taken for granted that the one behind the pulpit knows more about what’s going on than the ones in the pews.
In my particular case, there weren’t too many surprises but I think a few eyebrows raised when I stumbled a bit during the Lord’s prayer. Some churches repeat it every week and some don’t use it at all. The wording can be different from one group to another, with some sticking to the wording from the traditional King James, while some have adopted more contemporary translations that are more true to our present day style of speaking. It’s more natural for me to say, “Forgive us our sins” than “forgive us our trespasses” and “yours is the kingdom” rather than “thine is the kingdom”.
The difference isn’t that I haven’t studied the Lord’s Prayer, but I just haven’t had it drilled into my head from childhood. I was still in elementary school when prayer was taken out of the classrooms, so for most of my schooling, I haven’t had to say the prayer every morning. None of the churches I have worshipped in used much memorization and liturgy in worship, and yet I’ve always felt that I hold the Lord’s Prayer in high esteem. A religious leader is asked by his followers how they should pray and the church has looked to that model ever since.
Among the things we are to pray for is “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If we pray that, we can’t look only to our death as a time to experience heaven, but we have to work to re-create it here on earth. The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus explains later, is place where the victims of earthly kingdoms are helped, healed and restored to dignity.
People still pray at school, usually before tests or waiting to see the principle, long after the Lord’s Prayer was dropped as a daily ritual. Either way, when we pray to God, we need to still do our part to bring about what we’re asking for. So heaven isn’t only a reward at the end, but also a responsibility for everyone who prays that prayer.