Starting on Sunday, July 1, and continuing through September 2, we’ll gather for Sunday worship in the Chapel. The Chapel allows us to worship with greater intimacy and gives us the opportunity to do some things with liturgy, narrative, music and art that will be more effective in that space.
One of creative elements the Worship & Arts committee will encourage is congregational participation in crafting liturgy – things like the call to worship, prayer of confession, assurance of pardon and prayers of the people. We’ll be creating some guides and resources to help you, and maybe even having a workshop or two. More on that will follow soon.
Our worship will more deliberately focus Mark’s gospel following a lectio continua, or “continuous reading.” Normally Pastor Mike and the Worship & Arts committee follow the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle, as a guide for preaching and our worship. But for our ten weeks in the Chapel, Pastor Mike created a custom lectionary that takes us from Mark 5:21 through Mark 9:29 with almost no omissions. This long section of Mark is almost entirely action with very little sermonizing from Jesus or authorial theologizing. Our broad focus will be on touch, embodiment and movement.
We also have some ideas for participatory and cumulative art projects, drama, movement and more. Again, more info will follow!
The W&A committee is really excited about the possibilities of our summer worship and we hope you all will join us not only with regular attendance but enthusiastic participation.