Kathryn Ritsema Roelofs

This is part of the worship series, "Psalm 23"Series Introduction Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10Week 11 | Week 12IntroductionThis series was designed to be a flexible focal point during the summer months when family schedules were less predictable and many people, including our pastor, took vacation. By using Psalm 23, one of the most familiar passages in Scripture, as our summer theme, the worship team hoped people would feel a sense of continuity even if they had missed a service or a guest pastor was preaching. We sent an email each week inviting reflection on that week’s verse and providing prompts for additional engagement. Each children’s message was centered around the week’s verse, and we taught the congregation how to sign the psalm. Several congregation members offered testimonies or reflections as the summer progressed. Psalm 23’s flexibility was proved as it coordinated well with two different sermon series and two services led by guest pastors over twelve weeks. Lorelai Reiffer, a talented young artist in our congregation, contributed artwork each week that we featured in our bulletin and on social media. She offers her artwork free to use with attribution. They can be downloaded from the resource section below.We chose to use the New King James Version’s rendering of the psalm for this series because we felt it was more poetic and would resonate with adults' early memories of the psalm.Series OutlineWeek 1God’s Work in Ordinary TimePsalm 23:1 Week 2Green Pastures and Still WatersPsalm 23:2 Week 3RestorationPsalm 23:3a Week 4The Way of RighteousnessPsalm 23:3b Week 5The Shadow of DeathPsalm 23:4a Week 6God’s PresencePsalm 23:4b Week 7The Shepherd’s ToolsPsalm 23:4c Week 8God’s Invitation to the FeastPsalm 23:5a Week 9Anointed—Blessed and CalledPsalm 23:5b Week 10AbundancePsalm 23:5c Week 11Chased by GoodnessPsalm 23:6a Week 12Our Forever HomePsalm 23:6b Revised Common LectionaryYear A: Easter—Fourth Sunday of EasterYear A: Season after Pentecost—Proper 23 (28)Year B: Easter—Fourth Sunday of EasterYear B: Season after Pentecost—Proper 11 (16)Year C: Easter—Fourth Sunday of Easter

Are you unintentionally sending the message that work has no place in worship? “Leave it at the door and pick it up again on your way out!”

I love doing jigsaw puzzles, whether it’s a 1,500-piece Thomas Kinkade painting spread across my in-laws’ dining room table at Christmas or a 15-piece Thomas the Tank Engine puzzle with my child on the kitchen floor. There’s something so satisfying about the way each piece has been crafted for a particular location, and as you examine shapes and shades you find a way to build something whole and beautiful piece by piece. Do you have moments when you sit down at your desk, open up a blank Google document or new week on Planning Center, and feel like you’re about to start assembling a jigsaw puzzle? There are the standard components in your worship service that don’t change from week to week. Put those pieces in. Then there are the seasonal elements for holidays, holy days, or denominational days. Add those pieces to your pile. Will you be having the Lord’s Supper or a baptism this week? Put in the piece. Has something happened in your community or elsewhere in the world that needs attending to? Is it a meaningful Sunday to the church, either for celebration or for grieving? Leave ample space for those pieces because they are often last minute and always important. Will there be people worshiping online, listening on the radio, or watching a recording? Make sure there are pieces to include them as well. By the time you’ve identified all those pieces, sometimes all you can do is find a way to connect some of them and vow to incorporate the leftover pieces another week. I want to affirm you and tell you that you are doing hard and holy work. The fact that each week God’s people are gathered for worship and the Holy Spirit is present in the worship of your community is a testament to God’s faithfulness at work within your planning efforts. Whether it was a week you barely pulled it together or a week where you were energized and ready to go, God’s name was praised. There are many puzzle pieces that might never have been taken out of the box. During the pandemic years, some of us discovered new pieces and were able to try them out; others of us ended up putting well-worn and even beloved pieces back in the box because they just didn’t fit. And now many of our congregations are trying to figure out what pieces are necessary to make their worship feel right and complete once again. As many of our churches begin to evaluate some of these pieces with new eyes, I want to encourage you to think about how to include our children not just as worshipers, but as worship leaders. This puzzle piece is vitally important for them and for you. Children and youth need to be reminded that their presence matters. The church laments the time when we weren’t able to gather in person with people of all ages. We didn’t just miss the cute Christmas pageants with children in sheep ears and angel halos. We missed the children themselves. We missed their wonder, their curiosity, and their life. We missed them as our brothers and sisters in Christ who bear God’s image. We missed them as those who experience and engage worship every bit as meaningfully as we do, who often open our eyes to see the ways God is working in the world through a whole new lens. We missed them as fellow worshipers whose voices join in to mirror the resounding praise in heaven above. When we intentionally involve them in church life and leadership, we communicate that their presence with us as equal worshipers matters. Children and youth need to be reminded that their leadership matters. Of course we did actually miss the children acting in pageants and singing Sunday school songs. But their participation isn’t just about making cute videos to send to grandparents. When our children lead us in worship—as a group, as a family, or on their own—they are not performing for recognition. They are worshiping! God’s call to worship is every bit as much for them as it is for adults. We want them to worship in ways they can understand and engage with their young bodies and minds. We want to honor what the Holy Spirit is doing in and through them and how God might be using them. We do this best when we involve them as leaders—when we mirror what they are doing instead of always expecting them to follow us. Their worship is genuine and real, and there are times we need to follow them. Children and youth need to be reminded that their perspectives matter. I wonder what it would look like if you sat down on the metaphorical kitchen floor with a child of your congregation and started building the puzzle together? And what if we did that from the posture of “What can I learn about worship and about God from you?” instead of from a posture of teaching the “right” way to worship? I wonder how the past two years have affected our younger minds and how they might want to lament the brokenness and the pain they’ve experienced in their lives. I wonder what questions or memories they have when they hear water pouring into a baptismal font and over a forehead. I wonder what they wonder. As both a parent and a worship planner, I know that giving children and youth leadership responsibilities in worship takes extra work. It is easier to hand off a Scripture reading to an adult who can practice on their own. It is simpler to ask someone who has an email address and doesn’t need additional permission to participate so you can put one more piece securely in its place as Sunday draws closer. It is far less stressful to have a predictable soloist who won’t need extra rehearsals and multiple sound checks. But I urge you to consider recent worship shifts from a child’s perspective. How confusing it must have been to lose the stability and rhythm of Sunday worship, instead being at home with a bowl of goldfish crackers or in a sanctuary sitting far apart from other worshipers! What have they learned and observed about church, about worship, and about God? Now is the time to ensure that their presence and participation in church is not just tolerated, but fully embraced as a vital part of worship. These pieces might require additional time to fit into the puzzle, but including children where they rightly belong brings us one step closer to a fuller picture of God’s grace and God’s presence in our worship each week. Each piece matters. Praying that every person in your church find their place in this glorious picture, A fellow worship leader and planner

This is part of the worship series, "Rooted and Established in Love”Introduction  Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3  | Week 4—World Communion Sunday   Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8—All Saints /Reformation SundayWeek 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12—Christ the King SundaySeries IntroductionWashington, DC Christian Reformed Church presented a twelve-part fall worship series titled “Rooted and Established in Love.” Using a tree as a metaphor, the series led the congregation through the journey of God’s creation, the brokenness of humanity, redemption in Christ, and the call to mission. Reformed Worship chose to publish this series because of its clear connection to faith practices. To help strengthen that connection, we have included a faith practice note for each service. We hope the notes will help inform the message, but they can also be adapted for bulletin notes, to prompt reflection time following the sermon, or for individuals, households, or small groups to discuss together.Series Outline ScriptureTitleFaith PracticeWeek 1:Genesis 2:4–25"The Living Tree” Formation Week 2: Genesis 3“The Dying Tree” Forgiveness and Grace Week 3:Exodus 3“The Calling Tree” Obedience and Discipleship Week 4:Judges 4“The Justice Tree” Community, Unity and Solidarity Week 5:Isaiah 55“The Witness Tree” Witness/Evangelism Week 6: Luke 13:1–9, 18–21“The Patient Trees” Patience Week 7: Luke 23:26–49“The Saving Tree” Sacrifice and Storytelling Week 8: Hebrews 11"The Family Tree” Spiritual friendship/Mentoring Week 9: Psalm 1“The Giving Tree” Generosity Week 10: Galatians 5:16–26“The Fruitful Tree” Rule of Life Week 11:John 15“The Abiding Tree” Rootedness Week 12: Revelation 22:1–6“The Healing Tree” HopeVisuals Two artists from our congregation helped us envision ways to integrate visual components into this series. One taught a painting class during church school and used the tree theme to inspire students’ pieces. We hung the paintings on one wall of the sanctuary.The other artist created a piece based on photographs of her “family tree.” This piece was also hung in the sanctuary, and the artist shared its story with us on All Saints / “Family Tree” Sunday.The front of the sanctuary during this series featured greenery. a basket of leaves, and a thematic banner in addition to the usual liturgical furnishings.Also appropriate would be an adaptation of the ideas for projection described in  “Worshiping with the Psalms” that features an image of a tree. An Invitation: If you make use of this series, we would welcome your submission showing how you adapted it for your setting and what resources you developed. We may choose to add those new resources to this series, making it even richer for those who make use of it in the future. How to Submit Resources to ReformedWorship.org. 

As pastors and worship leaders, we do our best to live into the gospel that we proclaim from week to week. It’s a gospel big enough to contain both our laments, our cries, our hopes, and our joys. It’s a gospel that recognizes and acknowledges the brokenness of our world and still finds a way to offer the hope of Easter morning.

This is part of the worship series, "Be Not Afraid”Series Introduction and Prelude  Advent 1  | Advent 2 | Advent 3 | Advent 4 | Longest Night | Christmas Eve | Epiphany 1 | Epiphany 2  We—pastors, worship leaders, congregations —are afraid. Recent years have seen the rise of a global pandemic, job loss and economic depression, and overwhelming prophetic anger at racial injustice, not to mention all of the uncertainties and losses of being human on a planet desperately in need of restoration and renewal. Advent is a season of waiting on God’s promises for a redeemed creation. As we wait, we offer up our fears to God and hear God’s comfort in angel voices: “Do not be afraid.”For Advent, Pastor Meg Jenista Kuykendall preached the instances throughout the Christmas story where the words “do not be afraid” are spoken. We dug into what each character’s particular fears might have been as they were told that they had been chosen for a greater purpose. We looked at the many ways God’s promises of God’s presence were steadfast even in times of doubt and confusion.Prelude to AdventFear as the Beginning of WisdomGod Calls Us to WorshipScripture Reading Psalm 111Songs“O God Beyond All Praising” (choir sings st. 1, all sing st. 2–3)Perry“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” (st. 1, 3, and 4)Smith We Confess Our Fears and Are Assured of God’s Presence With UsSong “Still, My Soul, Be Still” GettyPrayer of Confession Lord, we are a fearful people. It is not easy to rest in you alone, and it is not easy to feel secure in a world that is shifting beneath our feet. We fear for our jobs, our country, our own health, our families, and all those we love. Fear is a language we speak fluently, and we confess this. Lord, we need faith in your wisdom and in your providence that, no matter what it is we fear, you in your wisdom are guiding us and walking with us.Choral Assurance of Pardon “Child of God” De VriesGod Speaks to Us a Word of Grace and Sends Us Out With God’s PresenceSong “Be Thou My Vision” IrishScripture Proverbs 1:1–7Message “The Fear of Wisdom, the Wisdom of Fear”Sending Song “God of Grace and God of Glory” (st. 1, 2, and 4)FosdickAdditional Services for This SeriesTwo previously published services that would fit well with this series, also by Pastors Kathryn Roelofs and Meg Jenista Kuykendall:- Longest Night: A Service of Christmas Mourning, RW 125:25- Be Not Afraid: A Service of Scripture and Song for a New Year, RW 133:30 

The change of the church season and the participation of the democratic process remind us of the privilege and the call to participate in a greater story being told.

It doesn’t matter how many beautiful and well put together worship services you’ve crafted. What truly matters is how you’ve chosen to love and care for those whom God has entrusted in your worshipping congregation.

The powerful work of the Holy Spirit in our places of worship is so incredibly gracious through and through and often times surprises us with unexpected glimpses of God’s grace to the people God loves so dearly.