Well, it's almost time for lay ministry classes to commence again, and I find I've been assigned the job of leading a closing devotion.
I remember, back in my university days, going to LSM retreats just champing at the bit to write up a liturgy. Not that we knew what we were doing back then. I shudder to think of some of the self-important and silly stuff we may have come up with sitting there in our sleep-deprived states in drafty, smoke-filled lodges in the middle of Middle America. (Mime service, anyone? We did that.)
The more I understand about the mechanics of worship, the more humble I am approaching the task of creating worship. I find myself inclined to fall back on the tried and true.
I haven't decided if I'm going to wing it with this particular devotion, or go with what I know. I could take the easy way out and announce that we'll engage in 30 minutes of silent meditation.
Or not.
3 comments:
Um, yeah. I remember those mime services. Also some very regretable "Prayer Poetry". But we were really going to teach the world a lesson, weren't we?
Back in March our bishop appointed me to be chaplain for our semi-annual conference dean's meeting with about 2 days' notice.
I opened up my LBW and used The Litany (p. 168), Responsive Prayer 1 (p. 161), and Responsive Prayer 2 (p. 164). I inserted a scripture reading, Psalm, and hymn.
I figure, why make something up when some fine theologians have done so much work for us.
That's my feeling too. If I want to be creative I'll be creative with, say, a prayer in the middle of an extant liturgy, not the liturgy itself.
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