In my tradition, we're in the midst of a week "when festivals collide," a dilemma we solve by moving our observance of the Festival of All Saints to this coming Sunday. Some of you have already been there/done that. But no matter where our congregations are at in the lectionary this Sunday, our respective readings all point to the same thing: a God of the living, One whose Reign reaches into all of eternity, One who reminds us that, whatever is happening to us in the now of our own lives and situations, we are not at the end of the story.
What are your thoughts as you engage the texts for Sunday? As always, we encourage you to share your ponderings, perplexities and proclamations here.
Hi there! We are kicking off stewardship campaign this week (made a glancing mention of All Saints on Sunday and I guess that's all they are getting this year) so I'm off lectionary. We are using the resource "eat dessert first" - anyone else ever used this material? It's fun at least, which is more than you can say for lots of the stewardship stuff.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating All Saints this week; I'm not preaching b/c I'll be on my way to CREDO. But I love to preach on All Saints, so I sorta hate to miss it.
ReplyDeleteSince we are a "liturgical year and celebrations optional" kind of a tradition, All Saints is sort of up to the individual church and/or pastor. I've been doing it since I've been here with a sort of hope to eventually start up an annual service that we hold on Nov. 1 no matter what day it falls. This would have been the year to start that since last year it was on a Sunday (right?). Anyway, that didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteThis coming week I'm on the week in my Reformed theology series that will focus on the Church as the Body of Christ. I timed it to go with a communion Sunday and will also fit a little of All Saints into it since it fits. We started a banner my first All Saints Day here. We bring it out for this service and other appropriate services throughout the year. We put the names of folks who have died in our congregation or in our lives on ribbons with bells attached. It has been growing each year, obviously. We had a great saint of our church die on All Saints Day this year so I will add his name to the banner. The way we did it last year was have the ribbons and banners up front and people could add ribbons when they came forward for communion. It was like including the saints in our celebration of the sacrament which was really cool! I'm sure I'll do that again.
I'll get a little preachy in this sermon when I'm talking about the church because in recent weeks we haven't been acting like the church at it's best (even more than usual). There's been more than the usual snarking at one another, a lack of forgiving spirit, and general ickiness. I haven't really done this kind of "come to Jesus" sermon before, but I think it's called for, and I've had a few weeks to pray about it. I think even my come to Jesus sermon will be lower key than some, so I'm not really worried, but it will be different.
Hello RevGals. This week we are having breakfast church - food is woven through the liturgy. No sermon from me, but a conversation at the tables as bread and cheese and jam etc are served. This year the theme is 'what can we celebrate?'. As I am not quite back from 4 weeks annual leave [start back Thursday, but I went through most of the e-mails yesterday], most of the liturgy was prepared before I went away.
ReplyDeleteI'm emergency supply preaching at my local congregation. The regular pastor's mother is expected to join the saints this week. Local congregation is observing All Saints this week; the congregation I supplied last week observed it last week. So...that means I have a sermon ready to go. Trouble is, I didn't like it very much and am not sure I can bring myself to use it again. It will require quite a bit of reworking. I'll also want to touch on communion, as we didn't do that last week.
ReplyDeleteLocal congregation has a neat tradition, though, worth sharing here: they have a flower for each person who has died in the past year. Family members/friends bring forward the flowers, and at the end of the observance, there is a nice bouquet. Different than the standard candles. I like SheRev's ribbons and bells, too.
We're doing All Saints this week; we are also hosting the area CROP walk on Sunday. The rector and I are preaching together for kid-friendly sermons at 2 services, taking off on an All Saints' idea that "we walk because they walked," and the CROP walk motto of "we walk because they walk."
ReplyDeleteWe're using 5 of our stained glass windows that have to do with journeys for this: Columba-journey of love; Albert Schweitzer-journey of mercy; Francis-journey of simplicity; settlement at Jamestown-journey of freedom; Rosa Parks-journey of justice. We'll finish up at a collection of crosses personalized to remember those saints who have died this past year.
If it all works out as we hope, it should be good!
We did All Saints on Monday with Evensong. The expected baptism didn't happen as baby and mom were both sick.
ReplyDeleteSo it's multiple marriages and resurrection for me this Sunday. I've just begun the search for enlightenment.
We are participating in the UCC "Bring a Friend to Church" Sunday. As I looked over the lectionary, it did not sound all that upbeat (though it could be) for bringing those friends back. I love a pearl downunder's idea of having the who service be a meal. There is time to work on that a bit. Any helpful tips from anyone?
ReplyDeleteAs I am new to this blogspot, I also see that a screen name would be good. Rev Dr Mom is taken (my kids' idea a while ago) so I will ponder it.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteRe Breakfast Church : if anyone wants the liturgy from last year on Zacchaeus, or this year, based around the communion service, please send me an e-mail minister at engadine dot unitingchurch dot org dot au