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Where Life and Worship Intersect

4/27/2018 0 Comments

Prayers of the People, E5B

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​At the Spirit's urging,
all along our journeys of faith,
we have been greeted by
teachers
who took the time time
to explain what we read,
what we heard,
what we wondered.
Today, we give thanks
for those faithful disciples
who have come alongside us
with kindness and courage,
patience and grace,
and led the way to understanding
and to inclusion in the community.
Hear our prayers for those
who have not been so fortunate, Lord;
who have been excluded from your house
by those who cannot wrap their heads
around the radical hospitality
practiced by Jesus
who welcomed ALL.
Hear our prayers for those
who read but do not comprehend,
who have no one to help them
understand,
who travel bewildered
by a desert road
looking for hope
in a barren land.
Hear our prayers for the church,
which in all its good intentions,
often fails to live out its purpose
because of rules
that stand in the way,
Send your Spirit
now, O God,
and open the hearts
of your people
everywhere,
that the Word may be heard
and understood
through the continuing faithfulness
of those committed to discipleship.
0 Comments

4/25/2018 0 Comments

Prayer of Confession, E5B

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Call to Confession

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. (Psalm 25:8-9) Let us confess our sin before God and seek God's mercy and instruction.

Prayer of Confession

Each day,
we make momentary
decisions to act from
love or fear.
Answering the
call to new
places, we find ourselves
confronted with situations that
challenge our sensibilities.
Fear inhibits
us -- fear of
the new, the different,
the uncomfortable.
Too often,
we submit to
fear, failing to love,
to serve.
Forgive our
hesitancy to go,
to seek, to listen,
to respond.
Teach us
to love boldly
and in action and
in truth.

Assurance of God's Grace

Through Christ we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2) In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God!

Since God has forgiven us in Christ, let us also forgive one another. The peace of Christ be with you.
Please extend the peace of Christ to all whom you encounter this day ...
0 Comments

4/24/2018 1 Comment

Call to Worship, E5B

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​Welcome,
you who are on the road.
Do you know where you are going?
Welcome,
you who have been relegated to servanthood.
Do you wonder how you can serve the Lord?
Welcome,
you who are seeking to learn.
Do you understand what you are reading?
Welcome,
you who long to be adopted into the family of God.
What is preventing you from being baptized?
Come,
and worship,
rejoicing on your way!
1 Comment

4/20/2018 0 Comments

Prayers of the People, E4B

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​God of Mercy and Compassion,
your people are called before councils
and demanded to name the authority
by which they minister,
by which they serve,
by which they heal.
Your people are given hoops to jump
and obstacles to overcome
that are put in place
by people in power
who want rules followed
when it suits them
and not followed
when the rules inhibit their own
purposes.
Your people, inspired by Jesus' example
and moved by the Spirit,
are breaking down barriers
and building relationship
in the name of LOVE,
but FEAR stands in the way ...
accusing,
abusing,
convicting,
and crippling.
Hear the prayers of your people,
O God!
Tear down the structures that
threaten to destroy what is
possible,
and rebuild the community
in good deeds done
that all who cower hopelessly
may stand in the streets
and shout
GLORY
to your name.
0 Comments

4/18/2018 0 Comments

Prayer of Confession, E4B

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Call to Confession

Power and authority can be used to help and it can be used to hurt. It can be wielded as a weapon or submitted to service. Humans often view it as a right instead of a privilege and use it inappropriately. Let us confess our passion for power and seek God's mercy.

Prayer of Confession

Like the high priests
and the temple authorities
we are consumed with
power.

By what authority do
others do what they
do, we want to
know.

We place significant importance
on structure and chain
of command instead of
relationship.

It is this rigid
adherence to rules that
undermines the privilege of
leadership.

We have created the
vaccuum in which we
now live by our
greed.

Forgive our passion for
power, we pray, and
make us servants of
God

in the name of
love.

Assurance of God's Grace

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. In the name of the risen Lord, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God!

Since God has forgiven us in Christ, let us also forgive one another. The peace of Christ be with you.
Please extend the peace of Christ to all whom you encounter this day.
0 Comments

4/17/2018 1 Comment

Call to Worship, E4B

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​Into the circle of gracious community,
the rulers, elders, and scribes
are called.
Into the circle of loving welcome,
the prisoner
is called.
Into the circle of healing prayer,
the lame, the ill, the sinful,
and the forgiven
are called.
Let it be known
that in center of this circle
is the risen Christ,
Jesus of Nazareth,
whom alone we worship and praise.
1 Comment

4/13/2018 0 Comments

Prayers of the People, E3B

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​Like beggars at the gate
called Beautiful
we are lame.
Unable to stand under
the weight of our sin,
unable to walk bearing
the burden of our grief,
unable to move forward to
confront our fear ...
to overcome our anxieties.
Each day we depend
on the love of our family,
on the commitment of the community,
on the kindness of strangers,
to lift us
from our places of crippling
inability to function,
and carry us to the Healer.
Hear our prayers
for mercy.
Be present, we pray,
in the wisdom
and knowledge
and technology
and touch
of every kind of healer
whom you have endowed with gifts
toward that end,
that the world might be restored
to wholeness
in the name of Jesus
the risen Christ.

Amen.
0 Comments

4/11/2018 1 Comment

Prayer of Confession, E3B

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​Call to Confession

This people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ (Mt. 13:15) Let us repent from our sin before God and seek God's healing together.

Prayer of Confession

Humans like
to judge, and with that judgment
comes the power to reject:
rejecting ideas
and rejecting attitudes

that are not consistent
with who we have been called
to be,
but sadly,
also rejecting other humans

for the color of their skin
or their country of origin
or their gender
or sexual orientation;

for the people they choose to love
and the ways in which
we imagine that impacts
our visions of the present
and the future,

for their core beliefs,
and the ways they live those
in the world.

We have failed to remember
that our knowledge and understanding
are finite,
that rejection does great damage
to the collective soul,

therefore, we are not called to judge,
but to love,
and to love unconditionally,
for the power to love
is greater than any power
known to humankind.

Assurance of God's Grace

God said to God's people throught he prophet, Isaiah, "I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you." (Is. 44:22) In the name of the risen Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God!

Since God has forgiven us in Christ, let us also forgive one another. The peace of Christ be with you.
Please extend the peace of Christ to all whom you encounter this day.
1 Comment

4/10/2018 0 Comments

Call to Worship, E3B

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​Are you standing, staring?
Are you wondering --
confused about what you see
and terrified or just bewildered
by its meaning?
Are you hopeful or hopeless?
Are you healed
or in need of healing?
Are you the healuer?
Are you the persecuted?
Are you ready to bring your uncertainties,
gathered into loose bundles
like soiled clothing
and lay them
before the Lord?
Are you ready to worship
the One who makes all things new?
0 Comments

4/6/2018 0 Comments

Prayers of the People, E2B

Picture
​When the young mother cries out
desperately for her children and
for the life she longs to have

and rails against God
in her grief,
because of the tumor on her brain
that threatens her future,
where are you, God?

When the child is gunned down
without reason
and a place of security

becomes a place of fear,
where are you, God?

When the father who has lived here
as long as he can remember
is sent to his ancestors' country

of origin that is foreign to him,
and his business is left
without a leader
and his family
without a protector,
where are you, God?

When the poor
and the hungry
and the homeless
and the lost
and the grieving
and the depressed
and the hopeless
are in need,
where ARE you, God?

When the tomb is empty
of the Savior
and your people cannot find you

and do not know where to look,
where are you, God?

Make your presence known, we pray,
in the sharing of resources among the community
... of time
and money
and faith
and prayer.
Make your presence known
in the lives of your people,
so that you may be found
among those in need.
0 Comments
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    Author

    Julie served as a Commissioned Ruling Elder in a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation for thirteen years. She now absolutely delights in filling the pulpit for colleagues upon request, and looks forward to opportunities to do so. Her reformed perspective is sprinkled with humor and presented with authenticity, and she is open to creatively deconstructing worship as a means to helping congregants explore worship in transformational ways.

    Julie and her husband, Ray, are parents of three adult children, and grandparents of four energetic and imaginative little people. She is an introverted-with-enough-extrovert-balance-to-keep-her-social, perfectionistic-with-hopper-tendencies, time and goal-oriented, kaleidoscopic, and insatiably curious child of God.

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Julie participated in the 25th Seminar for Certified Zentangle(R) Teacher Training in June, 2019, trained by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. In addition to creating art as a personal spiritual practice, Julie also incorporates the Zentangle(R) method in Prayer Art Retreats in a variety of contexts, including church groups, friend gatherings, and at a local art gallery. Check out the Upcoming Events page for a calendar of events, or use the Contact Us page to inquire about scheduling an event with your group!
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