There Is Nothing That Can’t Be Brought

When mutual friends of Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore heard they were both going to be living in New York City, the two women received a flurry of texts. The general message: You have to meet each other — you’re cut from the same cloth. 

So, they did. Nearly six years later, the pair of self-proclaimed “words girls” has a flourishing friendship, but that’s just the beginning. Elledge and Moore have co-written two books that stem from their shared love for God, the church, and the idea of using their writing gifts. Their first book, Liturgies for Hope, started as a project intended to encourage their fellow church members during the pandemic. Liturgies for Wholeness hits the shelves on February 20, filled with prayers that are simultaneously lyrical and logical, creative and concrete. 

The 60 liturgies in the new book do not ignore the mundanities of the day — there’s a prayer for washing your face, another for rising above a mistake — nor do they shy away from life’s great struggles: anger, a loss of pregnancy, grieving something one never had. Instead, Elledge and Moore take a wide-lens image of humanity’s boredoms, complexities, and possibilities, thoughtfully and imaginatively zooming in on their many nuances. The result is a book of prayer that testifies in equal measure to God’s omnipresence and tenderness, his sovereignty over all and his sympathy with our weakness. 

Earlier this month, Elledge and Moore spoke with Common Good about their friendship, how their church has supported their artistic endeavors, and how they pray their books will both build up the body of Christ and invite those yet to know God into conversation with him. 

Common Good: How did your friendship evolve into a co-writer relationship?

Elizabeth Moore: It definitely started during COVID. As Audrey mentioned, we both loved words and writing together before the pandemic. We’ve always had the same taste when it comes to things to read or write. During the pandemic, our church community — Church of the City — was encouraging the artists in the congregation to use their giftings and talents to serve the community. Audrey had the idea to write liturgies for our church during the pandemic because it was such a new experience for everyone — everyone was struggling with anxiety and fear, worrying for their physical health and loved ones. It was just such a strange time. We both felt a need for prayers and peace. So, we wanted to use our skill set as writers to give peace and Scripture packaged into prayers. 

So, in March of 2020, we wrote 11 liturgies. We gave them to our church to put in the newsletter. That was as far as we ever thought it would go. Then one thing led to another and it became two books.

CG: I love that this came out of your local church life. 

Audrey Elledge: Yeah, they’ve been the sweetest supporters, truly. In March 2020 when we wrote what would later become Liturgies for Hope — our first book — we gave the liturgies to the church’s creative team. Eventually our pastor, Jon Tyson, found out about the prayers we had written and something about them resonated with him. 

Out of their own free time, two of our friends, Chris and Jeff, built a website to host the liturgies. That allowed them to be launched into the world and spread. Pastor Jon tweeted them out on Easter Sunday 2020 and it’s gone on from there. Our church friends and people we don’t even know at our church have been consistently supportive and excited to come to our book launches or poetry readings or whatever we do. It’s really sweet to feel like your church is totally supportive of you in your artistic gifting.

CG: What are some of the specific ways your pastors and church community have supported you as artists?

E.M.: In 2020, our church — and Audrey and I are in no way the leaders of this — started hosting salon-style events where artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs presented about the projects they were working on and shared how others could participate and collaborate. That’s become something called Renaissance, which is this beautiful, thriving community in New York. It’s connected to Church of the City and unabashedly a faith-based organization, but we welcome artists all across the faith spectrum. You don’t have to be a Christian to come. It’s a way for artists to share their work and support one another. 

When I say it’s thriving — my heart just glows every time I think about it. It’s been so special. For me, that’s been the biggest way that Church of the City has supported Audrey and me — by genuinely supporting the arts at large and empowering us to identify the unique gifts we’ve been given, steward them, and identify others in our community to help us maximize them. 

There’s also a big emphasis on beauty at our church. Our former creative arts pastor drove that home. He would say that beauty was an apologetic — that we can use beauty as a way to draw the world to God. We want to be part of that.

CG: The emphasis on hope in your first book is clearly tied to the needs people had during the pandemic. What led you to focus on wholeness for your second book?

A.E.: We came up with the word “wholeness” after seeing the prayers we wanted to write. Once we came up with topics we wanted to cover and grouped them into sections — mind, heart, body, soul, senses, home, community, world — we realized we were talking about the different ways we move from brokenness to wholeness as an individual people and as a neighborhood, community, or globe. 

“Wholeness” is the word that felt right. We’re both passionate about wanting to help others — and ourselves — move toward wholeness in Christ. Wherever you are on that journey, there’s always more room for healing, for flourishing, for asking God how he wants to bring us into wholeness in different areas. 

CG: What is your co-writing process like? 

E.M.: We come up with a list of topics together then assign each liturgy. We each wrote thirty. Our writing styles are very similar, so I don’t think anyone can tell who wrote which one. So, we write them separately then edit and comment on each other’s writing. 

CG: Do you have favorites — both of your own and each other’s?

A.E.: Oh, yes. One of my favorites that Elizabeth wrote is called “A Liturgy for Browsing a Museum.” I love that because it’s so specific, and you can invite God into those things. I also love Elizabeth’s “A Liturgy for Voting” and “A Liturgy for a Broken Heart.”

I think she nails it in “A Liturgy for Accepting Yourself as You Are,” because in Christian discourse there’s the idea that if you accept yourself as you are, you’re accepting sin. But the way Elizabeth approaches this liturgy encourages us to embrace who we were created to be, who we were meant to be in the womb, trusting that the world will be better for it. 

I wrote “A Blessing for Bravery” for me — words I need for myself when I am scared or anxious. That’s my favorite of mine right now.

E.M.: One of my favorites from Audrey is “A Liturgy for Right After a Panic Attack.” It’s a very specific moment that Audrey has been through herself many times. Seeing you write that, Audrey, was beautiful. I’m really drawn to some of the other heavy ones, too. There’s “A Liturgy for a Loss of Pregnancy.” When I read that for the first time it felt so powerful and anointed. 

“A Liturgy for a Trip to the Grocery Store” I just love. It’s a chance to invite God into an errand I usually trudge through — this liturgy opens your eyes to its whimsy and wonder. And “A Liturgy for Washing Your Face” is just full of perfect metaphors. 

My favorite of my own is probably the same as what Audrey said — “A Liturgy for Accepting Yourself as You Are.” 

CG: I’m raising two little actors who have musicals at the end of the month, so I have to know the story of “A Liturgy for Before a Performance.”

A.E.: Well, first, break a leg to both of them!

We crowdsourced some of the topics — we wanted to hear what friends, family, people on the internet wanted a prayer for. That was a topic my little brother, a baseball player, submitted. He said that in the moment right before he goes out on the mound to pitch, he has so many competing thoughts and he wants to find a way to be grounded in the face of performance anxiety. 

So, I thought about him as I wrote, and I also drew upon my own jitters from presentations at work or when Elizabeth and I have given talks on stage related to the books. But it was mostly for my brother. I sent him a draft asking if it resonated with his experience and with what he sensed God wanted to say to him. He gave great feedback that really helped shape that one. 

CG: That’s a great example of how someone might use these liturgies as an individual. It sounds like you also have hopes for them to be prayed in groups. What types of communal engagement with your liturgies would bring you joy? 

E.M.: People have read a prayer from Liturgies for Hope called “A Liturgy for Waves of Grief” at funerals. It’s always been shared with us out of gratitude. So there’s a tinge of joy in knowing that one of our prayers brought solace and peace in a time of great sadness. It’s also been special to hear that people prayed “A Liturgy for Giving Thanks” over their Thanksgiving meals.

There’s “A Liturgy for a Dinner Party” in Liturgies for Wholeness. If someone told me they prayed it at their dinner party, that would send me to the moon. 

A.E.: We love when we hear congregations use them. Hearing them read out loud in a church service feels very special and like such an honor. With that, we really want people to use the Scripture references we’ve included at the end of every liturgy. That’s where our inspiration comes from, so it would mean so much if someone resonated with one of the prayers — maybe even wrote their own prayer, we love that — and dug more into the Word.

CG: It’s time for my favorite question: What do you want to tell me?

A.E.: Two things! First — we said this for the last book and are saying it now, too — we never mean to replace anyone’s prayer life. We would much rather encourage or inspire it. 

Second, and related to that, we love stories from people who have maybe never prayed or are newly curious about prayer. Hearing stories about people who picked up the book and are starting to pray or found words to start a conversation with God when they didn’t have any is what gets us really excited. These books are something we hope believers and seekers alike are picking up. We believe God wants to meet everyone and that there is nothing that can’t be brought to him in prayer.

E.M.: Yes, I was going to say the second thing Audrey said. Our hope is not only to supplement the prayer lives of those who already pray but to inspire, encourage, or open the door for people who have never prayed a day in their life or maybe haven’t prayed in a long time.

Our first book starts with “A Liturgy for Those Who Don’t Pray,” and I think that sets the tone for what Audrey and I hope these books can be. 

 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Liturgies for Wholeness is available February 20, 2024, from Waterbrook.