Prayers/Litanies
Blessing of the Palms 2018
A simple blessing of the palms for Palm Sunday 2018. Blessing of the Palms Blessed Christ who comes in the name of the Lord, may these palms be, not toys, but tools: tools that we hand out to one another on Palm Sunday; tools that we walk over as we enter worship; tools that we fold into crosses and playfully swat our brother or sister with; tools that we bring home with us to dry and to remind; tools that we will burn next Ash Wednesday to mark our foreheads, and our mortality; and tools that we use to enter into this Holy Week, enter into...
read moreEaster 2018
Here are selected resources to assist you with your Easter Sunday planning. Though I have separated the resources for Sunrise and Later Morning Service, you could use any of the resources at either service. EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE Call to Worship One: We are standing on holy ground. We have entered a day of miracle and mystery. We are unsure of what it all means. Many: Don’t be alarmed! One: How can it be? How can the dead live again? How can a cross become and empty tomb? Many: Jesus has risen! One: Today is a day to experience. Today is a...
read morefragile…exposed…mortal
A prayer for Ash Wednesday that could be adapted to use throughout an Ash Wednesday service. Fragile…exposed…mortal…temporary…finite… …ashes and dust…we…you and me. So we put on clothes and then armor… …we put on degrees and wealth… …we put on insurance policies… …we put on achievements and addictions… …and we put on anything that will make us feel… …if only for a minute… …that we are anything but ashes and dust. So God calls to us… …through prophets like Joel… …through a savior like Jesus… …and through this season of Lent… …for...
read moreMLK 2018
Below is a call and response prayer that could be used as a Call to Worship, Pastoral Prayer, Benediction, etc. The text is taken from various MLK quotes and the congregational response is from King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, after the prophet Amos. One: We now raise the voice of the prophet Martin Luther King whose voice we still need so much: “I have the audacity,” King said, “to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds,...
read moreTimewalk
Below is a prayer-poem I wrote on 10/17/2017. It could be used as a call to worship, pastoral prayer, adapted for multiple readers, supplemented by projected images… Timewalk the sound I’ve heard before of countless leaves crunching under directionless feet the sight of now exposed branches, a calendar the transporting smells carried into my nostrils, carrying me back to distant days, younger walks the foretaste of nutmeg and buttered crumbles that are as close as the church parking lot the feel of time moving, time passing, time...
read moreSo Much to Learn: A Blessing
Below is a short and easily adaptable blessing for Sunday School students and teachers to be used at the start of a new school year, or whenever appropriate. God, there is so much to learn about ourselves, our neighbors, our world and about you. So, as children, youth, and adults, we again set aside this year of Sundays, and plenty of other times too, to learn: to learn from your Word to learn your ways of peace and justice to learn to worship and pray to learn resistance to learn grace to learn how to be church and to learn a million other...
read moreFrom Summer
In September, many congregations regather to begin a new program year (e.g. “Rally Sunday,” “Gathering Sunday,” etc.). To mark this change of congregational rhythm in the context of worship, below is a call to worship and opening prayer that can be adapted for use in your setting. Supplies Needed: 1) Map (any kind will do), 2) bed pillow, 3) Bible, 4) something to symbolize the spirit (dove, blowing fan, etc.), 5) cross Personnel: 5 people, 1 to carry each of the above items (inter-generational mix would work nicely)....
read moreCrossing 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...
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