By Liturgical Element
Crossing Borders
Below are: 1) a Call to Worship, and 2) an Opening Prayer that were written for a service with a sermon titled, “CROSSING BORDERS.” Scripture for this service was Acts 16:9-11 (vision of a man from Macedonia) with sermon based on Acts 16:11-15 (Lydia of Thyatira). For sermon audio, click HERE. Paul and Lydia were border-crossers indeed!! CENTERING WORD: (Acts 16:9-11) One: The Holy Spirit was alive and blowing Paul across borders for the sake of the Gospel. MANY: Sometimes we resist the Spirit. Often, we prefer what’s safe....
read morePrayer: Fathers & Fathering
Below is a pastoral prayer written for Sunday morning worship on Father’s Day 2017. It seeks to acknowledge the richness and complexities of this day while inviting God into it all. Use or adapt away! Female and male, feminine and masculine, mothering and fathering, God, Scripture bears witness to this richness in your being, and in the world through you. One month ago we spoke and prayed of you in the language of female, and feminine and mothering. And today, on this day in our culture that we call Father’s Day, we use the language...
read moreHard to Breathe
A prayer-poem inspired by Acts 2 and written for Pentecost 2017. Try giving a wireless microphone to the reader who would read it from the back of the sanctuary, balcony, narthex, etc. The disembodied nature of the delivery will be unsettling, mysterious, and disorienting…kind of like the Holy Spirit… Hard to Breathe it was hard to breathe after Calvary after Golgotha after the place of the skull and it was hard to breathe after resurrection after the road to Emmaus after ascension so the followers didn’t breathe in...
read moreShort of Love
PRAYER OF CONFESSION People: Dear God, before you and before each other, we admit that we have fallen short of love, in what we have done and in what we have failed to do. Open our hearts. Forgive us. Help us forgive ourselves and each other. Guide our lives that we may live in harmony with all your creation through the gifts of your loving spirit. Fill us with hope, grant us your grace. Amen. WORDS OF ASSURANCE Leader: The God who loved us once, loves us still. God’s love is unconditional. Yet, God’s love conditions us to better care...
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