I’m hoping to take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s day, which means I’m doing a lot of worship planning this week. Our opening scripture for New Year’s day will be Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 11-14a. And here is the call to worship: Praise be to God, Creator of time and space! Who has…
Our time of worship together on Christmas day will be primarily a Christmas hymn sing. On top of the inherent busyness of this time of year, there’s been illness at my house this week. So the less preparation needed for worship, the better. Here’s the call to worship for Christmas Day: Hear the Good News:…
Here is the order of worship for our Christmas Eve service this year. This is basically a “Lessons and Carols” service–though not with all of the traditional readings. We will be using a variety of translations for the scripture readings, because sometimes you just need to hear King James English. (And sometimes you don’t.) Christmas…
The following reflection on Luke’s story of the annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) is adapted from a sermon I preached on December 13, 2009. You might have noticed by now that the writer of Luke gives us a lot of detail here in the first chapter. We know who was king. We know what priestly division Zechariah…
Last Thursday I was preparing for today’s service of communion and anointing. I pulled out the little bowl—hand-formed and glazed a brilliant blue—that we use for anointing oil. To my surprise, the bowl still contained ashes from Holy Week. So there I was in mid-December, trying to pour the ashes on our lily plants and…
We will be having a service of communion and anointing this Sunday–the 3rd Sunday of Advent. Here is the prayer of confession I wrote for the service, primarily based on Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11. The assurance of pardon will be the hymn “O Jesus so Sweet,” sung by our choir. Holy God, Open our eyes to…
We will be doing the Holden Evening Prayer Service tonight. It is an Advent tradition in our congregation and one of the most meaningful holiday activities in which I participate each year. Here are the scripture readings for tonight along with a brief meditation I wrote. Isaiah 11:1-9 Luke 1: 5-38 The Advent season is…
Here is the offertory prayer we are using during Advent each year. I just change out the “candle” words from week to week–God of Hope, God of Peace, God of Joy, God of Love. I pray you are all having a blessed Advent so far. God of Peace, in this season of Advent, this time…
Here is a simple Call to Worship we will use this week, from Psalm 27: The Holy One is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear? God is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid? One thing I ask from of my God, this only do I seek: to dwell in…
I did not write any liturgical pieces for my congregation this week–sometimes it’s nice to use the words of others. So rather than provide you with words for corporate worship today, I am sharing with you a spiritual practice that I appreciate called praying in color. Sybil Macbeth made this prayer form popular with her…
Spacious Faith 