By Liturgical Element
Leading Silence
A number of years ago while on a mission trip, I was planning a weekday morning worship service with youth and adults. We were assigning people to lead various elements but when we got to the end of the liturgy, I realized we had one youth left who had not yet been assigned a part. So, out of necessity, I said, “OK, ‘Frank’, why don’t you lead the silent prayer?” To which Frank responded, “how do I do that?” It was a good and profound question, of course. I mean, how do we lead silence? Is that...
read moreConnected: Web of Yarn
Here is an exercise that uses balls of yarn to illustrate community/unity/oneness/body of Christ by physically connecting a worshiping congregation. It could be used: as an illustration for a children’s message as an illustration during a sermon about community as part of reading Scripture (e.g. Romans 12:4-5, John 17:21, Psalm 133:1) Your idea here:________ Procedure: Get some balls of yarn (inexpensive/used/donated). Hard to say how many for your setting, but you will need enough yarn to weave back and forth throughout the...
read moreWhat You Have: A Prayer-Poem for the Season of Epiphany
Below is a prayer-poem I wrote for the season of Epiphany, which is all about SEEING. This could certainly be used at any time in the church calendar when temperatures cool and snow falls… What You Have It’s hard to know what you have. the field behind my home is fertile and open an expanse of grass and hay. every now and then I’ll see a dog out for a walk or a cat lazing about or a few friends playing catch. And then it snows. by midmorning there are ski tracks and deer tracks and boot prints and paw ...
read moreInvocation for Advent Festival of Choirs
A few years ago I was invited to deliver a prayer of invocation to begin a local festival of choirs on the first Saturday of Advent. This annual festival is now a little over ten years old and includes ~7 choirs (sacred and secular) from around our area. It is well attended and brings in a wide cross section of our community members. Writing a prayer of invocation for such an occasion is not as simple as it might seem as there is much to do in a short time! Below is a sample prayer which acknowledges the nature of the gathering, gives...
read more