God of those who still have to go to work
Be with us
God of all of those who can’t work
Be with us God of those with preexisting conditions
Be with us
God of those who can’t be vaxed/boosted yet
Be with us
God of those who are hanging on by a thread
Be with us, All we pray
Amen
Feel free to share/use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Holy Spirit,
Let me tell you, it’s a good thing you are in charge,
because….
whew.
I do not want to be in charge of all of this.
The things that I am in charge of are–
to put it lightly
hard.
And in a time such as this
I never know
what to do next
or what will change
(Jesus take the wheel)
So anyway back to
You being in charge
and how very VERY good that is
Because you know how to get things done–
with the eagerest of resources,
and the clumsiest of servants.
So here I am, meager and clumsy.
Ready to serve,
let me know what to do next
I pray.
Amen.
Feel Free to share/adapt/use with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!
Living Into this God Given World
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing! I have already Successfully funded year 1, and am now working on Year 2!s
Sept 12 Creation by the Word
Living Into this God Given World: Creation
Sept 19 Binding of Isaac
Living Into this God Given World: Struggling with Trauma
Living Into this God Given World: Dreams & Blessings
Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17
Oct 3 God’s Name is Revealed
Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15, 4:10-17
Living Into this God Given World: Food
Living Into this God Given World: Calling
Living Into this God Given World: Judgement
1 Samuel 16: 1-13; Psalm 51:10-14
Living Into this God Given World: Holy
Living Into this God Given World: God’s Voice
Extended Advent?
Living Into this God Given World: Justice
Nov 14 Amos: Justice Rolls Down
Living Into This God Given World: A Savior (Promised)
Nov 21 Isaiah: A Child is Born
Living Into This God Given World: Hope
Nov 28 Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles
Advent Resources: The Fullness of God/Fulfilled By God
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!
Lord, it’s been quite a week: Elections and Infections and Insurrections. To say we are tired is an understatement. We are stuck, numb.
The prayers that fall from our lips are entreating. Please God make a way for us. Clearly we are lost, squabbling in the desert.
Please. Let us not freeze in this moment. Help us to do justice, and remind us the the doing will take a while and a lot of work. Help us go love mercy—not cheap forgiveness carelessly given, but the deep mercy given to marginalized communities who need the mercy of equity.
And the mercy given to the oppressors after the truth is told.
And Lord if these lessons are what we need to learn to walk humbly, where we do the needful work of God’s without quid pro quo or expectations of reward.
Let us not freeze up—as we have done in crises time and time before, set our hands and minds and feet to do the work. Encourage and en-courage us to try. To move forward inch by inch. Help us not to be alone in the work but to find others, partners in Christ’s service, who are inching with us we pray.
Remind us that God knows we can only see a dim reflection of ourselves, and that we only see in part and know in part. His knows this, and still tells us to do the work.
Sing us to sleep at night, grant us some Sabbath and sanctuary so we can nourished and empowered for the work we pray.
In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy
With credit to Margaret Aymer Ogrt for her poignant call.
Elijah at Mount Carmel: Power& Prophecy of Presences 1 Kings 18:17-19; 18:20-39, Mark 9:2-4, Psalm 68
More Seeds Series Resources here
Call to Worship
Let God rise up
Let, the enemies of God be scattered, but let the righteous be joyful.
As smoke is driven away, wickedness perishes before God. God who created us and called us good.
Let us exult before God, let us be jubilant with Joy.
Call to Worship
Let God rise up. Can you hear the voice of God?
It is in the still, small voice of a prophet, the quiet crackle of the fire, the joyous shrieks of children.
When the world mutters and murmurs, calling on other things for help, let us call on you.
Because you alone are God, Let us worship you today.
Call to Worship
Do not limp with different opinions
If the Lord is your God, then call on God!
Remember the God who answers by fire is indeed God.
Light us up with the fire of the Holy Spirit we pray.
Call to Confession: When we are out of fuel and drowned in sorrow, this is the time to share the burden with Christ, so that he can remind us of who we serve and give us the energy to do it.
Prayer of Confession:
God who whispers in our heart of hearts, I confess that I cannot hear your voice over the mutters and cries of help. The world is full of the noise of injustice, and I have forgotten to seek your still, small voice. Speak to the embers of justice in my heart, and light me on fire to be a troublemaker for you I pray
Prayer of Confession: Lord, we confess that we are divided, we don’t want to upset anyone so we don’t express our opinions. We find we limp with two different opinions instead of seeking justice. We are too quiet in the face of injustice. Give us the spark within so that we can be inflamed with justice and goodness. Help us to act for justice for one another we pray.
Prayer of Dedication/the Day: O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
Assurance of Pardon: The fire of the Holy Spirit never goes out. It is always inspiring us, energizing us and refueling us through the power of grace. The Holy Spirit tells the truth to our hearts: in Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen.
Hymns:
Breathe on Me Breath of God
This Little Light of Mine
For All the Saints
Spirit
Eternal God Who’s Power Upholds
Lo a Rose Ever Blooming (yes more advent-ish)
Art found https://biblewalks.com/info/Elijah.html
With Kids: This Little Light of Mine, Light candles and talk about fuel and the Holy Spirit (bonus if your are near all Hallow’s Eve/Halloween), Build a pretend Campfire. Play Whisper down the Lane: Talk about how hard communication is and how hard it is to listen for God, Practice Noise vs. Celebration: Talk about how we humans confuse the two, Invisible vs. Visible Church: Discuss the power of a cloud of witnesses vs a noisy here and now crowd, Practice Prayer: Discuss how Prayer is not a magic spell but feeding the fire/connection with God
More Seeds Series Resources here
Faith is opening oneself up to interpretation. Laying your whole being and existence of the line in order to interpret
the who of oneself
the why of existence
the where to now of being
These interpretations are done, usually, using a text, speaking from the Presbyterian perspective that text is the Bible, followed by the Confessions of faith and the Book of Order (our rules/discipline/consistituational documents)
But opening ourselves up to interpretation means being open to the interpretations varying, and interpretations themselves to change, because GOD is not a static being.
Consistent and faithful–God can be counted on.
Generally most people think God does not change, altho this does little for the times in scripture when God changes God’s mind (go figure).
But I say, if God can change God’s mind so can we.
If God is not static, neither should our faith.
If something is not growing, its not alive, we want a lively faith, we need to be growing in our interpretation and our understanding.
I have learned so much, by listening closely to all those people whose faith is especially different than mine. To my one best friend who never was churched but has a strong sense of God and Jesus. To my other best friend who was raised more Pagan than anything else and has a strong sense of the Greek & Roman Mythos of the world.
To my siblings all of whom are millennials, none of whom attend church regularly.
To all the fellow-clergy on twitter & Facebook who are feeling our way through social justice issues and the state of the world.
To my LGBTQUIA community who can interpret scripture in ways that are beyond my ken as a hegemonic individual.
To my brown sibs and and black sibs who are empowered, loving and honest in ways that need to be heard.
Here I am, open to interpretation, and my faith informs that, and the scriptures equally are being interpreted and re-interpreted.
And I read the Bible, and that is Canon, but I read the other texts too, Langston Hughes and Madeline L’engle, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Malala Yousafzai, Elias Chacour, and so much more.
If you are asking a questions of faith, be sure to be open to interpretation, hard as it is.
For you know, that’s the kind of faith that will change you.
Truth is my weapon of choice. When meeting with adversity and evil. When facing down the human machinations that we call politics, when dealing with the perniciousness of gossip, when hearing a criticism that burns my soul….I choose truth
Truth is my weapon of choice. When meeting with adversity and evil. When facing down the human machinations that we call politics, when dealing with the perniciousness of gossip, when hearing a criticism that burns my soul….I choose truth
Its a chancy weapon, because its a double edged sword, naming who I am in the situation even as it names others. It becomes confession. When you tell the truth you admit to yourself, and all others, that you are but human.
And I am all too human, horrible at remembering the names of my 40 some congregants who I have known for 6 plus years (and I am young), bad at details, fumbling at asking for help when I need it. I am small and frail. Spending a season admitting that I was, am and will be Ash is hard.
But even as I admit who I am, I also admit who God is.
“You are my God” “To you I cry all day long”
“Be gracious to me” and “Gladden the soul of your servant” for all that I lack, God has, and all that I wish for, God knows and all that I need, God is.
Other gods, do not dirty their hands with humanity. They may bargain or scheme with humans, using them or playing with them. But they do not broker humanity choosing to enflesh themselves through their only son.
I will bow down before the Lord my God, and glorify her Holy name, for God alone does wondrous things, stepping beside us in the daily, dirty, beautiful thing called life.
Only God does it all through truth, revealing to us who we truly are
Revealing to us who God truly is
Because you Lord, “have helped me and comforted me”
Praise Be to God
What is the length of a day? Some days pound on me, relentless, some days never let me go.
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+30
The length of days–heaven and earth are called to witness–will count. When we choose life our time counts even moreso.
Before I had children I would strive to be on time for everything. My parents were not the on time sort, and apparently I used to complain that I was the last child to be picked up from things.
Today I not only have to be late to things, but I have to miss commitments. Things I never would have done before children. But life is more complicated now I have a church, a husband, 3 children-one of whom is autistic-and myself.
WAIT! that meeting was today too? I had it in a different time stream in my mind and didn’t realize it was the same day.
Time no longer runs in straight lines for me, its seems to squiggle and intersect in weird ways. Its like running parallel world at the same time.
Thus obligations and time and everything flows differently.
We count our days, but God is the true reckoner, and God’s way of counting is not in pure math or numbers. Its in experiences and hope, its in the life-giving moments.If I have three children, then God has all children. If time flows different with different children for me, then time takes on meaning beyond seconds and minutes and days. Time has become an out of body experience. But time has also become more meaningful than trying to do all the things or trying to count up my life by counting. Because nobody has time for that. Time has to count with the goodness and fullness of days.
Because, God is timeless, its hard to conceptualize A Being beyond time…
A Being who just Is, for whom Was and Will Be are intrinsic.
Time counts differently for God
Time counts differently for God’s people.
Hold Fast to God, but how do I do that? My concept of holding on is to calculate the time I spend in prayer or measure the good deeds that are done. I’m too human, I can only love by keeping track. As evidenced in this 30sec clip http://thirtysecondsorless.net/author/kstenta/
God loves me, without needing to keep track.
How do I let go of the relentlessness of time? How do I enter the time of Lent?
In my life, I am too busy…
I have always been a Martha, I don’t even want to be Mary.
But in the midst of the children screaming, the messiness of the house and the juggling of the schedules, God is there.
In my life, I am too busy…
I have always been a Martha, I don’t even want to be Mary.
But in the midst of the children screaming, the messiness of the house and the juggling of the schedules, God is there.
Just like Goodnight Moon, where each and every object is remembered and names, God keeps track of us, and loves us.
God is there in the mounds of paperwork, the long to do list and the phone that is ringing–in every worry that is a part of the church.
I know God is in these things, in the sunny walks to buy milk, where everything goes smoothly, in the car rides where everyone is yelling at each other for no reason. God is there.
But although God is there, the time I get to spend with God, is often not at worship where I’m trying to remember everyone in my prayers, or at home where we say our Amens or at the office where its a game of finish the most things. The moment I get to to spend with God is in the coffee shop–at the Barnes and Noble or the Starbucks, its when I go grocery shopping late at night, its when I get time to exercise.
And so I treasure the time I get to spend with God, taking comfort that God is always spending time with me.
katyandtheword 