By Liturgical Element
Capturing Lent
Cameras are ubiquitous and inter-generational. Kids have ’em on their tablets and DS’s, teens and adults have ’em on their phones, grandparents and great-grandparents probably have a phone-camera too…if not…they are likely to have one lying around the house. Why not use them for worship and faith formation? Here is an idea we used during Lent 2015 that you might adapt for your own use (could be used in any season). during Epiphany we advertised a Lenten theme of CAPTURING LENT using logo to the right: we...
read more[.mp3] to Worship
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone It is common in many church services to begin with a CALL TO WORSHIP. It’s an ancient thing to do and we Christians do it for a variety of reasons: 1) historical (we learned it from our Jewish brothers and sisters – shema); 2) theological (it reminds us that it is God who calls us to worship); 3) scriptural (calls to worship are often adapted from psalms and other scripture passages); and 4) practical (a call to worship signals the start of a service and focuses a...
read moreMother’s Day: thoughts & a prayer
Mother’s Day has become sort of a thing. Like it has happened with Memorial Day and Passover Seders on Maundy Thursday, more and more of my colleagues have developed an ambivalent/tense/negative relationship with the second Sunday in May. “It’s just a Hallmark holiday,” some will say. “It has no place in the church calendar,” other will say. Still others will bemoan the particular ministry complexities of this day, arguing, “not everyone has a mother,” or “not everyone has/had a good...
read more[UN] Scripted
Often in worship services…reading Scripture…breaking open the Word…reading the Bible…whatever you call it…takes place with a simple and standard format: just before the sermon a worship assistant/pastor walks up to the lectern; introduces a reading by saying something like this: “our Gospel reading this morning is found in Matthew, chapter 5, verses 1-12; reads the text; ends by saying something like this:”may God bless the reading and hearing of this, God’s holy Word”; reader sits down....
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