Gathering & Gospelling! The Worship Series based on The Art of Gathering and Unbinding the Gospel

Gathering and Gospelling

6 Week Worship Series

If you want doc versions, sample bulletins, and the handouts as a separate materials page, email me at Katyandtheword at Gmail

If you use this material, please consider donating to my GoFundMe for my Doctorate in Ministry for Creative Writing as a working Theologian. Any Contribution from $5-100 is appreciated and I am happy to provide receipts as needed.

The time is ripe to invite people into your community. We miss gathering, and we need to remind one another why we do this church thing, and share its importance with one another. Thus this worship series is developed around two works.

Parker, Priya. The Art of Gathering: How we Meet and Why it Matters, Riverhead Books, 2018, New York, New York.

https://www.betterworldbooks.com/search/results?q=The%20Art%20of%20Gathering

TedTalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/priya_parker_3_steps_to_turn_everyday_get_togethers_into_transformative_gatherings

Reese, Martha Grace. Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism, 2nd Edition, Chalice Press, 2008, St. Louis, Missouri.

https://www.betterworldbooks.com/search/results?q=Unbinding%20the%20Gospel

Each Worship is based upon a chapter, or two from The Art of Gathering. Some exercises and Prayers are from Unbinding the Gospel. After each chapter title is a Worship Title theme for that day.

You do not need to have read these books to do the series, but If you can read at least one it will help you in your writing and development of ideas. It is also a great companion study to read these books in conjunction with or before or after this worship series.

Proposed Order of Worship

Start with Scripture

Confession: Reflective Questions (silent meditation or music playing)

Call to Worship

Hymn

Optional: Confession of Faith: Apostle Creed or some other Confession

Children

Scripture Again

Creative Activity

Sermon

Prayer: Joys & Concerns

Hymn

Homework

Prayer of Dedication

Blessing

An article that might be helpful for your leadership to read
https://freshexpressionsus.org/2021/05/20/what-if-they-dont-come-back-4-opportunities-for-churches-post-pandemic/

Notes about the Order of Worship: Worship is ordered without announcements, because of the “Don’t Start a Funeral with Logistics” (TAG p.175) If you must do announcements I suggest printing them out, emailing them after or putting them somewhere around Homework. Note the scripture is read 2x, Confession is done meditatively with some reflective questions for your notebook or to think about. Creative Activity is before the Sermon, and write the sermon to be about 5-7 minutes, or consider skipping the sermon/reflection if your context will allow since time will have been spent DOING the sermon as an activity.

Also decide on your context for the blessing. Perhaps you want people to bless each other or perhaps there is a formal benediction. Feel free to use the Study Verse as the blessing

If you need another hymn or a space for an anthem, feel free. Our practice is to shorten worship in the summer, and we have been having only two hymns (without singing) for Pandemic Worship.

Sample Introductory Letter

Worship 1: Chapter 1 Decide Why You are Really Gathering: Practicing Communion

Worship 2: Chapter 2 & 4 Close Doors & Create a Temporary Alternative World: Make Holy Spaces

Worship 3: Chapter 3 Don’t be a Chill Host: Active Welcoming& The Invisible Church

Worship 4: Chapter 5 Never Start a Funeral with Logistics: Commitment: Here I am, I am Here

Worship 5: Chapter 6 Keep Your Best Self Out of My Gathering: Confession & Authenticity & Baptism

Worship 6: Chapter 7: Create Good Controversy: Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

Prepare: Figure Out how you will give people their reflective questions

Have Paper and Pen Ready for each person each session; perhaps give each person a small notebook (and offer to store them), and devise how you will send the Homework and Study Verses home

If you want doc versions, sample bulletins, and the handouts as a separate materials page, email me at Katyandtheword at Gmail

((This series has been developed solely by me Pastor Katy Stenta at Katyandtheword so sadly all errors are my own.))

Another church’s version of the resources with some really nice graphics are available here thanks to Pastor Christina Auch.

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