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Neverending

God, this is the week that never ends, in the year that never ends.

Always, towards the end of the school year there is an impossible week.

Where spring and summer activities collide in their not quite done, and just getting started-ness.

Always there is a week where the schedule doesn’t work, every day has triple obligations, and on top of that everyone is cranky.

And then, someone doesn’t sleep, and someone else doesn’t feel well or the car has trouble or the pet has to go to the vet or the computer quits working or a something else impossible happens.

God, timing is everything.

And this year, when I have spent more time with parts of my family than ever, and seen other parts and my friends almost not all…

This year when vacations and retreats are just gasps of breath in the midst of survival mode…

This year when all the “fun things” I thought I was doing to have fun turned out to be coping mechanisms essential to surviving, as they have fallen by the wayside and the to do list somehow continues while these other things don’t..

God Almighty, You know, how this year has been never-ending.

Like a song that is stuck in your head, nagging at you day in and day out, that’s how the pandemic works–always in the background, giving your headaches and heartaches. Always on the calendar as you figure out what to do and how to do it.

The stress presses down, on my head, on my heart, on my soul.

God, I have been praying without ceasing this year. I have cried and sighed and laughed and zoomed and emailed and turned on cameras and turned off camera, have put on masks and then then washed the masks, every single day of this never ending year.

I have examined every ache and sniffed and listened to every lonely heartache of my friends and family…..and taken-just-a-moment-to-center-myself all in prayer.

I am living into the rhythm of prayer Lord–one that is both structured and spontaneous, one that has been out loud and quiet, one where I’ve known exactly what to say and one where I’ve murmured nonsense to the Holy Spirit.

It’s the longest week, in the longest year I’ve ever lived.

So I will continue to pray, and live.

Thank God you are eternal, thank God that prayers do not cease, and are picked up by friends and families and churches and strangers when mine falter.

Thank God you are the song that never ends God.

Amen.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

The Neverending Story, a Piece of Philosophy | by Alonso Monroy Conesa | Medium

Week 4 Psalm 23

The Message Psalm 23

Laughing Bird (Australian) Psalm 23

The Lord is my Grandma

Call to Worship:

God is Good

All the Time

All the Time

God is Good

Let us praise, our God

Let us praise our God who is always Good.

Prayer of Confession: God, I know sometimes that goodness and mercy are chasing me because I’m distracted, or too hurried. I know too that it is hard to feel goodness and mercy when I am overwhelmed or in survival mode. Help me. Help me to see and understanding and feel the goodness and mercy that are already in my life. Teach me ways to cultivate these: with rest, nourishment and a practice of living out of abundance instead of scarcity. Teach me to be a Psalm 23 sheep I pray. (Silent Confession) Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: God loves you, you are forgiven. Let us tell one another this truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

1st Scripture Reading Isaiah 40:9b-11

2nd Scripture Reading Psalm 23:6

Prayer of Dedication: Thank you for chasing me God. As I go into the world, remind me to stop for a couple of minutes, so that I can feel your goodness and mercy wash over me. Remind me I pray. Amen.

Hymns: Amazing Grace, Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us, Jesus Loves Me, If I but Trust in God to Guide Thee, Lord of Our Growing Years, Here I am Lord, God of the Sparrow, As a Deer Longs for the Stream, My Soul in Silence Waits for God, Any Psalm 23, Morning has Broken, Breathe on Me Breath of God

Psalm 23 Series

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Psalm 23 Week 2 Psalm 23:4

The Message Psalm 23

Laughing Bird (Australian) Psalm 23

The Lord is my Grandma

Call to Worship (Isaiah 40)

Have you not known, Have you not heard?

God is with us

When we need comfort, God will comfort us

Come, let us abide with God.

Prayer of Confession: (unison) God I confess, I am scared. Especially when evil surrounds me, even though I know your rod and staff are supporting me, I am afraid. I do not know whether to speak up or stay quiet in the midst of evil. I am uncertain at times if I should be standing firm or running away. And sometimes I find death to be very scary. Support me as I wrestle with these very real fears, I pray your Holy Shepherding Name. (Silent Confession) Amen

Assurance of Pardon: Hear the good news, God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting, ever available to support us even when our steps falter. Let us proclaim the good news: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

1st Scripture Reading Isaiah 40:1-2, 21-24

2nd Scripture Reading Psalm 23:4

Prayer of Dedication: God help me to remember that you walk with us in the shadow of the valley of death, for you have been there before and know what it entails. When I am afraid, remind me that you do not fear evil. Help us to be brave and comforted as we walk in the world today and everyday, we pray. Amen.

Hymns: It is Well with My Soul, Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley, O Love How Deep How Broad How High, What Wondrous Love Is This, I love the Lord Who Heard My Cry

Psalm 23 Series

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Psalm 23 – The Lord is my Grandma

Grandma, great and mighty God…

you take care of me and everything I need.

You make me rest in the cool, green grass

because grass is good for my eyes, and good for my soul.

You take me where the water is still and quiet,

where the waters soak up the chaos of the streams of life.

You bring me back to life, filling in the gaps and chips and fissures of from life.

You lead me in ways that are right so that I will be a credit to you.

Even though crevasses and ravines want to claim me,

I am not afraid because I am not alone.

Grandma, you are with me. Your crook guides and re-directs me.

Your walking stick, which aids and supports me, gives me comfort.

Grandma, you always cook for me. Y

you set a fine table no matter who is there—

even if people who don’t like me—or whom I don’t like–come over.

Grandma, you value me and praise me.

You cover me with so much love that it pours everywhere,

splashing on everyone there and even back onto you.

You hold my life like it’s precious.

You hold my life like it’s good.

You hold my life like it’s beautiful.

Because you treasure my life, I will treasure my life too.

I will live every day as a blessed day spent at your house.

Living forever in your house—and eating at your table–is heaven for me.

Thank you for being my great, and good, grandma.

Feel free to use/share with credit to Rev. Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl (pronounced Gaatle)

Prescient God: Rainbows & Trinities

Today I think that the most prescient thing God ever did was to hang their rainbow in the sky.

God knew what God was doing when they hung up the bow after the storms

Knowing that we needed the reminder that every storm runs out of rain–as Maya Angelou put it.

Knowing that it would be claimed and expanded by all of God’s queer children, proclaiming that love is love is love is love and that God created a multiplicities of genders and sexualities–just like God created a rainbow with thousands upon thousands of hues and in-betweens.

We need rainbows, because God knew

Before sociological studies and microscopic and macroscopic science; before we did our Genesis job of naming all of the people, places and things of the world, you knew that very naming would make us create divisions.

Before we made elaborate charts to discover and explicate the mystery of the Trinity, God, you knew

You knew how much we need rainbows

You knew racism would be a stumbling block of sin,

that normalcy is a illusion of bigotry

that being neurotypical or not is a spectrum….which is another word for rainbow

and that gray can beautiful color, and sometimes we sit in the gray–

God I always imagine that the Trinity is gray, in between and a part of the rainbow world you created.

And God, you knew that you, the Almighty and Many Breasted God needed to symbolically and in all practicalities disarm Godself.

Promising never to send natural disasters as punishment.

Never.

And putting the most powerful weapon of the time, the equivalent of a gun, up. Forever.

Because if God can disarm Godself, then it is clear what we should do.

In the midst of horrific gun violence in the US, the state imbued violence in the United States and Colombia, and in the midst of border wars in Armenia-Azerbaijan, climate asylum and violence in Syria, and the oppression and apartheid conditions in Gaza.

God you know we need to figure out how to live in concert and beauty in rainbows–and how to first and foremost disarm ourselves as you did thousands of years ago.

Thousands of years ago.

God, thank you for your prescience.

And for all the rainbows

And for giving us the time.

And the promises within the rainbow, that it won’t always be like this.

Help us embody your rainbow.

Help us to honor your rainbow.

Fill us with rainbows I pray.

Amen.

rainbow | National Geographic Society — Image

Feel free to Share/Adapt/Use this prayer with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

A Week of Hard Questions: A Prayer

God, this week I asked hard questions

About love and tradition and cultural differences. I asked (rather timidly even) if race played a part to our reactions.

And soon I found myself hip deep in a quagmire of pain.

People were triggered. They felt they needed to defend their pain.

And it was hard God, and part of me wanted to take it all back. Because I don’t want to create heartache.

But then I remembered two weeks ago when someone asked me hard questions about love and inclusion and the brokenness of the system that I perpetuated.

And although that was embarrassing and hard. I lived through it.

And in reflecting this experience I remembered that part of why I asked the hard questions this week was because as of last week I was tired of us: me, the church, consumer culture, ignoring hard issues and perpetuating whatever was comfortable for us.

Did you ever notice Jesus really likes to answer a question with a harder question?

You deconstructed me Lord. And I confess I need you to bless this mess today, because I’m going to be in the deconstructed zone for a while.

Because once God starts to deconstruct you, it becomes easier for you to see other places where the threads of normal need to be pulled apart.

And you can choose to continue the work God started, but it’s up to you.

So I guess I’ve reached a new level of maturity, where I stay in the muck longer than is comfortable, and I feel the anguish of racism on top of the anguish of those in pain.

And as my heart aches, I am thankful for all the times I was able to say:

“I don’t know. “

And “I hear you.”

As I sat with the pain and let go of the reasons and the arguments.

Do you sometimes say I don’t know God?

I don’t know

But thank you for helping me to brave the muck; and help me to muddle through, or sit, or cry. Help me to do this hard questioning thing I pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

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.

Receipt Available upon request
Please give credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”

Venmo @Katy-Stenta (last four 7841), Paypal @KatyStenta, Google Pay Katyandtheword at gmail, Cash App $bookkats
GoFundMe, if you wish to send a check please email me for info

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

If you use this material, please consider donating to my GoFundMe for my Doctorate in Ministry for Creative Writing as a working Theologian.

Receipt Available upon request
Please give credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”

Venmo @Katy-Stenta (last four 7841), Paypal @KatyStenta, Google Pay Katyandtheword at gmail, Cash App $bookkats
GoFundMe, if you wish to send a check please email me for info

((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.

Living By Faith

Galatians 1:13-17, 2:11-21

Note: This year in the USA it is Mother’s day which can be controversial in church. These verses hint at, but do not necessitate Mother’s Day, there is a link to a specific Mother’s Day prayers at the end.

Call to Worship

God, you have formed me, and know me. You have set me apart with your love.

You have given me the gift of faith, loving me, before I even knew what love was.

You know us, and call us each my name.

Come let us praise our God, who knows us and loves us.

Call to Worship

God, you call us into faith

You call us, not alone, but together, so that we might better understand your love

God you call us to baptize all nations, in your name

For we are adopted into your grace not by our works, but by the gift of faith

God is calling do your hear?

Let us rejoice in the gift of faith.

Prayer of Confession: (unison) God, please search me and know me. You know the entirety of me, there is no part of me that is hidden from you. I confess that sometimes I startle myself, sometimes my thoughts betray me, sometimes I lose faith. Yet even then, you are there. Your left hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast. Keep me in the palm of your hand I pray (Silent Confession) Amen

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that sometimes we do not feel like the beloved children of God. Too often, we think we have to compete, Too often we squabble, and compare our good works. Too often we proclaim tests of faith, as if faith a gift that is given, rather than a metric to be proven. Forgive us. Open our eyes to your grace and mercy we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: When we fall down, God kneels beside us, helps us back up, and comforts us with her loving arms. And then she whispers into our ears the everlasting truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: God let us go into the world sharing this gift of faith we have. Proclaiming your love and sanctuary with every step, every breath and every word, not because it is required, but because it is a celebration of your gift of faith. In your son Jesus Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Hymns; Amazing Grace, God of the Sparrow, Jesus Loves Me, Just As I Am, On Eagle’s Wings. We Walk by Faith and not by Sight

Mother’s Day Links

Mother’s Day Litany

Pandemic Mother’s Day

Complicated Mother’s Day Prayer

Mother’s Day Confession

Pie Prayer

Is there a place where you can go where your just taken cars of for a few days? A tired pastor asked on Twitter

And then 54 pastors dreamed of a retreat with warm hugs and plenty of pie.

Lord we are all needing a place to rest in blessings. Our souls are exhausted. And we are striving to do so much more than go through the motions.

God I’m reminded once again that blessings are not pie, they don’t run out, we don’t need to fight over who has the biggest piece, and we should be emboldened to share our blessings with one another.

Because if blessings are like pie then it’s the miraculous kind pie: varied and never ending and complemented by warm hugs.

God please give us blessings.

Or at least some pie I pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Maundy Thursday Prayer

God, I know that when I am overwhelmed or depressed taking a bath or a shower seems insurmountable.

It feels like work, to wash things away.

And yet, when my kids are having a hard day or feel unwell—I immediately offer to give them a bath (or a shower).

I will start the water and be sure to add soothing bubbles. I’ll set up the towels and usually set out pajamas no matter what time of day it is.

I wonder if you knew that the disciples were feeling poorly after the long journey to Jerusalem, your tumultuous entrance, and your Frank discussion over dinner about what to expect in the next few days.

I wonder if you remembered how good it felt for Mary to wash your feet.

I wonder if you said to Mary—remember how you washed my feet? Can you help me do it again? Let’s make the water ready together.

As you knelt at the disciples feet and demonstrated how they can live one another did you blink back tears? Or did you tell silly jokes and remiss about your ministry I keep the tone light?

Remember me you said.

Love one another you said.

Stay awake with me, you said.

Let us all strive to do the same I pray. Amen.

Feel free to share/adapt/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta