By Liturgical Element
Stewardship Sunday: Serving, Sharing, Giving
Like many churches in our partner denominations (United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church), our church engages in an annual fall STEWARDSHIP CAMPAIGN. Over the years we have used many different methods: circuit rider, cottage meetings, every household visits, and Consecration Sunday. It is this last one, the Consecration Sunday model that we have used a number of times and the standard set-up is simple: our Stewardship Team: 1) picks a scripture verse, 2) develops a theme, 3) does some advertising around the church, 4) plans a...
read moreWorld Communion Sunday: Bread-Gift
In 2011, our church began a tradition on World Communion Sunday (1st Sunday in October) of giving BREAD-GIFTS to every family at the end of worship. The week before the service, we fill gallon size ziptop bags with the following: all of the dry ingredients for a basic french bread dough. We include enough for 2 standard sized boules (round loafs); the recipe with ingredient list (5 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, 2¼ tsp instant yeast, 2 tsp salt, 2 cups warm water) and instructions. Here it is: a. Pour bread mix from the plastic bag into a...
read moreEverything on the Table: A Script for the Transformation of Gun Violence
This script was used a part of a closing devotional to end a three week ecumenical study about violence in general and gun violence in particular during Lent 2016. (NOTES: 1) The scripture reference below is Micah 4:1-4; 2) For this study we used a resource created by the United Methodist Church, titled “Kingdom Dreams, Violent Realities,” which accounts for some of the language you will see below. For this resource, click here.) The text below can be adapted for use in small groups, at a vigil, for a Sunday morning worship...
read moreEaster Communion: Words of Resurrection
Below are some elements of a simple liturgy for Holy Communion on Easter Sunday. They are similar to the elements of our standard Communion liturgy (adapted from the United Church of Christ Book of Worship) except that the WORDS OF INSTITUTION have been replaced by WORDS OF RESURRECTION. INVITATION – Dear ones, this isn’t my table. It’s not your table. It’s not our table. But it’s Christ’s table. And because it’s Christ’s table all of us are welcome here. At this table, you don’t have to look a certain way. You don’t have to worship a...
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