Advent Narrative Lectionary: Dec 9th Esther

Advent Candles Liturgy with Taize & O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Scripture

Esther 4:1-17

Call to Worship

Lord give us peace

Draw us to you God

Our hope is in the Lord

From this time on and forevermore

Light us with your love God

Come let us worship the king of Peace

What do we hope for?

We hope for peace at such a time as this.

Who is our God?

Our God is the God of Peace, let us worship his holy name

How do we know this is God’ time?

There is a time for everything

Even in such a time as this?

Whatever God does endures forever, Come let us watch for God together

Prayer of Confession: Dear God, we confess that we get so busy that we forget. We forget to look for God and we forget to take time to practice peace. Forgive God, we pray. Amean

God of Peace, we have to admit are not a people of peace. We are more into plucking up than planting. We see more times to tear than times to sew. We pray that you teach us more about the time for peace.

Lord God, some days we have nothing but bad timing. Whatever we do is wrong and whatever we say is wrong, and we can’t find the right timing. Help us, we pray. Help us when we are fumbling for the right time. Help us when we feel so full of wrong that peace seems impossible. Gift us with your presence and fill us with your love and peace we pray.

Assurance of Pardon: Our God will give us peace beyond understanding, thus in that promise we can know the truth. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Prayer of Dedication/Closing Prayer: Send us into your world as a people of Peace we pray. Amen

God, grant us enough hope that we can continue to pursue peace, we pray. Amen.

Food for Thought

Hymns

Advent Hymn to Silent Night: Good of Peace and Away in the Manger: God the Weaver

Sunday School Ideas: Draw times of Day, Create an Advent Calendar and talk about Time, Brainstorm acts of Peace

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword

One thought on “Advent Narrative Lectionary: Dec 9th Esther”

Pingback: Today’s thought “If I perish I perish” (November 28) – Belgian Ecclesia Brussel – Leuven

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Author: katyandtheword

One thought on “Advent Narrative Lectionary: Dec 9th Esther”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply