Reformed Worship - Resources for Planning and Leading Worship

Props and Set

Eleven medium-size rocks, ten on a large black cloth at stage left and one at front, center stage. Metal wheelbarrow at back, center stage. Wooden cross, stage right. Lighted Christ candle on a high table next to Narrator.

Participants

Narrator; Person (dressed in black and wearing black gloves); Judas; Jesus; False Witnesses; High Priest; two Servant Girls; Peter; Observer; Pilate; Crowd (can be made up of False Witnesses, two Servant Girls, and Observer); Soldiers

A van-load of Southern Baptists from the hills of West Virginia drives 160 miles to meditate on a Stations of the Cross art exhibit—twice? What’s wrong with this picture?

The comforting smell of baking bread may evoke childhood memories of your mother’s kitchen or remind you of leisurely Saturday mornings sitting at the local bakery with the newspaper and a cup of coffee. But few people associate that lovely aroma with church services, even though bread figures prominently in worship.

Some time before Lent our pastor, Al Van Dellen, announced the theme of his Lenten messages: “Crucified—by My Hand.” The topics were Judas, Nicodemus, Peter, and the Centurion. I immediately thought of the wonderful readings from the drama “We Were There” by Marla Ehlers (see RW 58). We used Ehlers’s portrayals of Judas and Peter on the appropriate Sundays, and I wrote readings for Nicodemus and the Centurion, along with a service plan for the Centurion. I’m hoping others may find these useful!

Background

This liturgy has three movements: confession, assurance, and rededication. It’s as though the reconciliation part of worship that is common in many Reformed churches is magnified to encompass the entire service.

Because I refer to him in the meditation, I used Saint Augustine’s words about finding rest in God as the opening sentences. This theme is immediately picked up again in the gathering hymn, especially in stanza 4. Another
communion hymn that echoes this theme is “In the Quiet Consecration” (PsH 302).

A familiar feature of Advent and Christmas worship both at home and in church is the Advent wreath. Each Sunday of Advent another candle is lit, culminating in the lighting of the Christ Candle on Christmas Day.

Less familiar to many is the Lenten triad—an adaptation of the Advent wreath that can also be incorporated into individual or family devotions or used in congregational worship.

Lent is a time for reflection on the Passion of Christ as well as on our own lives. As the visual ministry team at St. Timothy, our challenge was to bring the Passion of Christ to our congregation in a tangible, intimate, visual way. We also wanted the message of the Passion to progress weekly, reminding the congregation of the previous week’s message without taking away from the message of the day.

This drama was designed to be presented by two middle-school age boys as an introduction to the season of Lent. It was submitted by Tom Vos, pastor of First Christian Reformed Church, Wellsburg, Iowa .

David: Hi, Tom! What’ve you been doing?

Tom: Hey, David! I’m all about basketball right now. You too?

David: Yeah, it’s real exciting: all the games—girls’ and boys’ tournaments, the Big Ten . . .

Our Lent series this year focused on the theme of sin. We used the seven deadly sins as a guide to examine our sin in some of the services. The first week of the series was a very general introduction to sin. The second week we introduced the seven deadly sins, using dirty rags to represent each of the sins.

The song “Hear the Cry of My Heart” was composed for a Lenten series at Neland; we wanted a song that would directly articulate the “cries” mentioned each week. I composed the verses around a particular meter. Leah Ivory came up with several compositions and we chose which melody we thought best expressed the mood of crying out to God.