Maundy Thursday 2017

Passing Peace?

“Passing Of The Peace”

It was their High Holy Moment:

a cheery “Morning” followed by

a brief handshake.

The congregation’s circulation

more family reunion potluck

than the exchange of divine grace,

the external power that helped me

endure their act of worship.

COP21 Worship Resources

A collection of worship resources related to the Paris climate talks posted by Citizens for Public Justice.

Contemplative worship

     The link below will take you to a podcast from the radio show The Spirit of Things.
Benedictus Contemplative Church
     The host interviews the priest and members of a church in Australia that follows a contemplative order of worship.  Their weekly worship service sounds appealing, more like a group spiritual exercise than a performance passively observed by an audience.
     Have you heard of the renewal movement of which this church is a part, World Community for Christian Meditation (http://wccm.org/)?

Gather Us In

Our opening hymn for worship this morning was "Gather Us In."  For those of you unfamiliar with this hymn, I found a video of someone playing a version of the tune.  Below are the lyrics to the hymn and alongside that are my reflections and reactions as we sang.

Paul's Guidelines for Worship

I want to experiment with the form a worship described in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 14: 26-40.  The first expectation that everyone will come to worship prepared to serve is very appealing.  I also appreciate the fact that Paul gives church members options; they can sing, teach, pray, tell a story, share an insight (limited to two or three speakers).  There's so many options here that it makes me think that the list is not exhaustive.  I also note that Paul had to give the Corinthians rules for courteous behavior, and that his etiquette (at least the way that Peterson has paraphrased it) seems fair: Speak from your heart, Don't criticize a prayer offered in an unfamiliar language, Be considerate.


Who's with me?  Ready to scrap the model of worship you've been following for years and instead experiment with Paul's guidelines?  And if you know of anyone who has already implemented this Pauline framework, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.