May 09, 2006

Easter Alleluia

Butterfly In a class I'm teaching on Crafting Language for Worship, we recently had a discussion about the value of significant words and repeated phrases in worship.  Some of my students from evangelical and free-church traditions reported with delight the value they have discovered in the the persistent Easter season call-and-response "Christ is risen!  Alleluia!/He is risen indeed, Alleluia!"   They report that using this refrain now is profoundly formative, reminding them of the catholicity of the church, and connecting them with the faithful of so many times and places.

All of this reminded me of a time when my congregation practiced a fast from the use of the word "Alleluia" throughout the season of Lent in anticipation of its exuberant reintroduction to worship on Easter Sunday.  Throughout the forty days, we still sang songs with "alleluia" in the lyrics, but self-consciously hummed "mm-mm-MM-mm" instead. 

Meanwhile, the young children of the church spent one of their education hours creating colorful construction paper butterflies, decorated abundantly with the word "Alleluia."   These were then crafted into a beautiful mobile, which debuted on Easter morning hanging high over the communion table, pointing to new life in Christ.  Alleluia!  He is risen!

May 9, 2006 1:46:27 PM | Alt, Ritual, Visual Art, Words

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4/30/06 music Just for fun I thought I'd post a list of music we're using this Sunday with some notes about the choices: 4/30/06 3rd Sunday of Easter Scripture readings: Psalm 116 and Colossians 1:15-23 (sermon text) OPENING HYMN: Bb – A Shout Rings Out/Daar juicht een toon (PsH 392) “prelude” choir sings verse 1 in Dutch then with cong 4 verses OT SCRIPTURE: Psalm 116 with “I Love the Lord” (SNC 227) (We'll volley back and forth between the reader and the people singing the song.) PRE-SERMON HYMN: The First Place (A great song by Matthew Westerholm which fits the sermon scripture like a glove. I created backing vocals for the choir to fill out the refrain a bit.) COMMUNION: D - God So Loved the World (choir only) D – At the Name of Jesus/Walker (JN 32) D/Eb – Oh Que Bueno (PsH 401) (using clave, maracas and bongos to bring the rhythm to life) Eb - Beautiful Savior (JN 5) Eb – O Christ, the Great Foundation (SNC 177) (May use the "Let It Rip" arrangement of the tune “Aurelia”) By way of context, the congregation is Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids. It's a liturgical CRC church with strong ties to Calvin College, Calvin Seminary and the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Stylistically, we lean heavily on the Psalter Hymnal and Sing! a New Creation. We also use a good bit of global music, some home grown songs, and dip lightly into choral repertoire and praise and worship. Peace, Greg Scheer
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Mother's Day I’ve been reading lately about how our consumer culture tempts the Christian with a competing and compelling way of being in the world. It even has its own calendar, featuring economic “holy days” in which we are encouraged to engage in ritualized pagan practices. This upcoming Sunday, Mother’s Day, notwithstanding its ostensibly Christian origins, is one such day. Not surprisingly, many churches participate in the cultural holiday by having special “Mother’s Day” worship services. This is not in itself a necessarily bad thing. The church excels at baptizing culturally suspect practices and turning them to God’s good ends. And I love my mother, I love my wife, and I happen to be a huge fan of motherhood and know well the spiritual value that being a parent can bring. But we’re on dangerous ground when the Church’s worship on this day turns away from new life in Jesus Christ, and turns rather into a slightly veiled civic celebration of the “traditional” family and the woman’s often subservient role within it. We are on slick footing when we plan services that have less to do with engaging a triune God and more to do with handing out a bit of instruction regarding our own preferred parenting methods. We risk pastoral malpractice when we put a certain type of woman on a pedestal, take a soft-focus picture, and offer bland, if well-meant praise, all the while ignoring the pain and the gifts of other types of women in our congregations: unwed mothers, women who have had abortions, women who have suffered from undesired childlessness, and women, both single and wed, for whom God’s call does not include children at all. So this Mother’s Day, make use of the counter-cultural liturgical calendar, and follow the lectionary readings for your service planning. And then let the struggles of family life and motherhood inform a rich pastoral prayer, like one of these from the Lutheran Church in Australia: God of all life, We thank you for adopting us into your family through the miracle of baptism, and for calling us to be brothers and sisters to each other through Jesus, the only Son of God. Today, loving Father, we pray for our mothers: who cared for us when we were helpless, who comforted us when we were hurt, whose love and care we usually took for granted, as we often take your love for granted. Today we pray for: those who are grieving the loss of their mother, maybe even years after they were separated; those who never knew their biological mother, and now yearn for her; those who have experienced the wonder of an adopted mother’s love; the families separated in the wars in ___. Lord, give them special blessings. Keep us united with Christ, so that we can love in the way he loves us and all people. We ask this for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Gracious God, we pray: for new mothers, coming to terms with both the joys and demands of motherhood;...

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