Skip to main content

Introduction to Worship for 9/10/2017

By

Season of Creation:

For the next six weeks, we will observing a season of Creation. Each week there will be special activities that are designed to deepen our connection to the particular focus of the day, including centers where you can light a candle and pray, pick up a coloring picture, design and color a rock, and other activities that are suitable to the theme.

  • September 10: We will celebrate the connections of all creation to our Creator, using one of the psalms of celebration that invites all things and beings to join the hymn of praise.
  • September 17: We’ll focus on growing things and on the human relationship to crops and forests, fields and trees.
  • September 24, “Water” Sunday: We will consider the water cycle and the ways in which water is life.
  • October 1, World Communion Sunday: We will be thinking and praying about the nations and generations of humanity, created in God’s image and beloved by God, as we celebrate the sacrament and commit to the healing of our world.
  • October 8: We’ll celebrate our relationship to animals, and we will have a blessing of the animals- in pictures only, but thanking God for the enriching presence of our pets as well as those who roam free in the world.
  • October 15: We will tell again the story of creation, and think about our calling to be stewards—what it means to be partners with God in caring for the earth.
Be sure to bring or send us a photo of your pets—past, present, or future—to use on October 8 (bonus points for pictures that show you and your pet together). If you email us a digital copy, we will print it for use in the display.

Reflections

Our Scripture Lesson this week is Psalm 148.
  • When have you felt humble awe and joyful wonder as you looked at (or heard, or felt) God’s creation?
  • What is the most beautiful place you have ever seen?
  • Choose one facet of creation that you love—birds, trees, weather, soil, water, light, children, sex, aging, sleep. Observe it, think about it, learn about it every chance you can. If that element of creation were your only Bible what would it tell you about God?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Worship for 4/30/2017

By
Followers of the Way: Renowned Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan made a profound statement about this week’s gospel reading. “Emmaus never happened,” Crossan wrote. “Emmaus always happens.” What we are invited to grapple with in that statement is the truth that the factual (historical) significance of the resurrection stories is secondary to a more profound truth: the risen Christ is with us. Now. Here. That is what the early church began to learn, and it is what enabled them to move on. Luke 24:13–35 The exact location of Emmaus is not known. Perhaps this uncertainty forms a commentary on the focus scripture. Emmaus may be anywhere. Hearts burning and eyes opening do not take place in only one place, either geographical or spiritual. Emmaus comes into sight wherever a path leads us toward communion with God and whenever we recognize the risen Christ among us. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, two disciples walk along the road to Emmaus with Jesus, informing this “strange...
1 comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 2/26/2017

By
Matthew 17:1-9 And so the Season after the Epiphany closes: on a holy mountain where God may be found. It is a place of sacred mystery, where shining and shadow convey a holy presence. It is a place of community across time, where God’s people of past and present meet. It is a place of silence and witness, where visions are kept quiet and God says of Jesus, “Listen to him.” From here, we go forward into Lent: the 40 days and 6 Sundays that take us through Jesus’ progress toward Jerusalem and the conflict with the government of Palestine that would lead to his crucifixion. We will have special worship stations in the sanctuary, for reflection and prayer; a Tuesday morning prayer group; a book study on “Gifts of the Dark Wood,” a book that reflects on the hard places and what we find there; and in worship, we will tell the stories of Jesus and his encounters with people who were on the margins, that he brought into the center.  So this week, we pause to reflect on the insight tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 1/22/2017

By
Matthew 4:12-23 This week we are excited to have guest preacher Rick Ufford-Chase with us.  Rick is the co-director of Stony Point Center (with his wife Kitty) and is the PC(USA) Associate for Interfaith Relations, a former moderator of the denomination, and an activist and justice worker, as well as a friend of the congregation. Rick has recently curated and co-written a book called “Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions in a Time of Empire”, which was the focus of our book study this fall at UPC. The title of his sermon is “Faithful Resistance: Not for the Faint of Heart”. So it’s fair to ask: what are we resisting, and why are we talking about it in church? We are resisting… the culture that is built on consumption and destruction; the vision of the world that puts white Christians at the center; our own tendencies to the call to love, the practices that lead us away from Jesus’ radical vision of God’s reign on earth, a “kingdom of love.” Rick will be with us the whole wee...
Post a Comment
Read more