I love to plan worship services. I love to arrange for the participants, select the hymns, write the prayers, choose the readings . . . I love every part. And I want it all to be perfect. I had this problem even before I was a pastor. My wedding, for example. I didn’t spend much…
*This liturgy is an adaptation of the traditional Great Thanksgiving liturgy. The concluding prayer of thanksgiving was (heavily) adapted from a prayer by Katherine Hawker. Communion Liturgy for Easter Sunday Friends, let us come out of the darkness and join together in the light of God’s love. You are invited to this table of life…
I do not have our Sunday worship service completely planned yet, though I’m getting close. I offer some worship pieces below that may or may not be used at Peace Mennonite Church this coming Sunday. I pray you are each having a blessed Holy Week. Call to Worship Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!…
Holy Week tends to be pretty hard on pastors–or at least on me. There is, of course, the practical aspect of organizing and leading extra worship services. (Between today and next Sunday there are seven worship services in which I have a significant part.) More worship services means more sermons to write, more music to…
*This order of worship is from 2011. You can see the 2013 service, which does not include foot washing, here. – – – – – Welcome and Introduction Confession and Assurance Hymn: What wondrous love is this (v. 1) Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Pardon (From Psalm 51) Hymn: What wondrous love is this…
I’ve added my sermon from Palm Sunday 2009 to my “Pages” (on the right hand side bar). The main point is that we try to make Jesus into the savior we want, thus depriving ourselves of the fullness of Christ’s salvation.
I wrote these worship pieces for the Second Sunday of Lent (Year A). They draw on Genesis 12:1-4 and John 3:1-17. Prayer of Confession Gracious God, You call us to a new land, a new birth. Yet our feet and our spirits hesitate. Forgive our laziness. Forgive our fear. Forgive our selfishness. Forgive our comfort.…
My hands are dirty from smearing ashes on people’s foreheads. My eyes sting from wiping them with ashen fingers. My nose tickles from the ash I’ve breathed in. From dust you have come. To dust you shall return. In the meantime there is grace. Grace that looks a lot like a smudged cross. Like sooty…
Today’s worship piece is small. As you may have seen, I’ve been putting a lot of my worship planning energies into tonight’s Ash Wednesday service. Today’s piece is an offertory prayer that we will likely use throughout Lent. ~Blessings Gracious God, through our offerings of worship, of time, of money, we seek to make space…
I love these lines from a Wendell Berry poem: Best of any song is bird song in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet This year I’m thinking of Lent as an opportunity to experience the quiet before the glorious bird song of Easter. Last year, I took on a major Lenten discipline—I…
Spacious Faith 