By Season
Breath of God: Creation to Pentecost (for 3 voices)
Here is a Pentecost Sunday reading for 3 voices, interspersed with a sung congregational refrain. The refrain included here is from “Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song,” (Daw & Cutts) but another hymn could easily be substituted. The Scripture translation is from the Common English Bible but, again, another translation could easily be substituted.” READER 1: As the Holy Spirit comes with fire and with wind, the congregation sings: CONGREGATION: [SING] “Like the murmur of the dove’s song, like the challenge...
read moreEarth…Fire…Spirit
Earth, Fire, & Spirit, by Rev. Bert Marshall A Dramatic Reading for Pentecost Sunday Based on Acts 2:1–21 Pentecost! The birth of the church! We’ve come a long way since that ancient beginning. The biblical passage for Pentecost suggests that the Christian church did not arise from a clear, single-mindedness of purpose. Our tradition, instead, burst into the world in a rush of wind, a blaze of fire, and a cacophony of voices and languages. There was no “gold- en age” of unity and harmony. The mystery and miracle of the Jesus movement is...
read moreMan Born Blind
THE MAN BORN BLIND – John 9:1-41 An ensemble presentation created by Rev. Bert Marshall from the Scholars Version of the Gospel of John CAST Narrator Jesus Man born blind His parents Chorus (playing the parts of the Disciples, the Neighbors, the Pharisees, and the Judeans) [The man born blind stands in the center, farthest from the congregation. The narrator stands to his right, Jesus to his left, each slightly forward. The chorus is on the wings, with half of them on one side, and half on the other side. A shallow arc is formed. ...
read moreOrchestral Worship
The 19th c. Danish writer, Soren Kierkegaard, in “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing,” says this: “Alas, in regard to things spiritual, the foolish of many is this, that they in the secular sense look upon the speaker as the actor, and the listeners as theatergoers who are to pass judgment upon the artist. But the speaker is not the actor – not in the remotest sense. No, the speaker is the prompter. There are no mere theatergoers present, for each listener will be looking into his own heart. The stage is eternity, and the...
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