This Ash Wednesday service is concentrated on prayer. The rhythm of the service is Readings + Prayer + Ritual + Singing. As worshippers enter into service, instruct them to seize a pot, seed paper, and a pencil.
welcome
name to worship
(Written by Lisa Frenz. Congregation sings the sung response.)
Within the softness of night,
within the solace of silence we come to you, O Lord.
We come for acceptance;
we come for neighborhood;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response:
O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer;
after I name reply me. O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer; come and take heed to me.
Within the serenity of day’s finish,
within the restfulness of worship, we come to you O Lord.
We come to you for respite;
we come to you for completion;
we come to you for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
Within the quiet of the night time,
within the consolation of darkness we come to you, O Lord.
We come for peace;
we come for consolation;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
We come, O Lord of Gentle,
in search of the illumination of your Phrase.
We come for the trail we are able to’t discover;
we come for the life we don’t have.
We come to you for our lives are loss of life
and also you alone have breath and being.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
A studying from Psalm 51:1-17 (The Message)
Prayer of Forgiveness
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
At midnight of night time God calls to us;
beckoning us on,
in search of us out,
calling us to peace,
to quietness,
to wholeness.
The world is darkish round us,
stuffed with coldness, terror and restlessness.
It’s a darkness of our creation:
greed, hatred, envy: brokenness.
Take us and heal us of each evil.
Deliver us again into the consolation and closeness
of your embrace, O God.
Your cleaning love, O God,
purifies our darkness restoring it to us:
heat, comforting, restful: full.
At midnight of our night time we hear God name,
providing love and energy and forgiveness.
With God the darkness brings consolation not worry,
love not hatred,
righteousness not punishment.
Stroll within the darkness of your life as within the mild,
for each the darkish and the sunshine belong to God,
as do you. Amen.
ritual
Write on the seed paper what you need to say sorry. Select a pot to position your seed paper.
(As worshippers are writing on their seed paper, they’re invited to sing and take heed to the next music.)
music
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Solid me not away from Thy presence, O Lord
Take not Thy holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the enjoyment of Thy salvation
And renew a proper spirit inside me
A studying from the Gospel of Matthew 6:1-6 (The message)
prayer of silence
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
Into the silence of the void the Creator spoke,
and the world got here into being.
The Phrase of God within the vastness introduced mild from darkness,
matter from nothing,
flesh from mud,
life from lifelessness.
Within the quiet of a small city in Palestine
the Phrase of God got here to us.
Though of 1 being with the Creator,
Jesus our Christ, taking over human kind, was born,
lived and walked amongst us,
talking the phrases of life.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He rose from the useless and speaks to us at the moment.
He’s the one who saves us from ourselves.
Within the stillness of our souls the Spirit of God,
who’s one with the Creator and the Christ,
whispers the Phrase,
and calls us again to the Creator,
again to the Christ,
again to the wholeness of eternal life
within the unity of the Creator, Christ and Spirit.
ritual
In silence, come to the middle along with your pot and contact the grime, the grime from the place we come from. As you contact the grime, say no matter prayer is in your coronary heart. Scoop a handful of grime in your pot to cowl your seed paper. As you come back to your seat, let the silence communicate to you.
music (to come back out of the silence)
(A soloist sings the verses. The congregation sings the italicized response.)
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
O Root of Life, implant your seed inside us,
and in your introduction, draw us all to you,
our hope reborn in dying and in rising.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Come, allow us to bow earlier than the God who made us,
let ev’ry coronary heart be opened to the Lord,
for we’re all of the folks of his hand.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Right here we will meet the Maker of the heavens,
Creator of the mountains and the seas,
Lord of the celebs, and current to us now.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Studying from This Right here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
“Ashes to ashes, mud to mud.” When God spoke these phrases within the backyard, did their voice crack? Did their palms tremble because the ten knelt to make garments that will cowl the glory they birthed? These phrases got here to us as disgrace entered the world – and out of disgrace, all method of struggling. They weren’t a proclamation of punishment however a reminder of Eve and Adam’s finitude. It’s a poem of grief and reminiscence. Ashes to ashes, mud to mud. There’s magnificence in our humanity. Peer down within the cool, darkish ash; there’s loss of life there. Watch the particles carry and sway within the wind; there’s but life . . .
On Ash Wednesday we’re marked on our foreheads with a reminder of our mortality. The identical palms we increase up and wave on Palm Sunday annually are made to know the sting of loss of life – we burn them. And the next yr, in an ever-curious act, we decide up the ashes and we mark ourselves with them.
What does it imply that we don’t simply speak in regards to the ashes, and even reverently observe them, however that we bodily smear them throughout our faces? Maybe, within the marking, we strategy solidarity. We keep in mind that the identical destiny that haunts you, haunts me. The identical magnificence that birthed you, lives in me. And that this comes as a mark on the physique. I feel, reminds us that the Lenten journey of self-examination is deeply entwined with the bodily world. As we mark ourselves with these ashes, we remind ourselves that no grief is solitary. That what has stricken you can also be carried by me. We start our Lenten journey collectively, reminding each other that we’re these whose flesh grows again. We’re those that stay. It’s not simple, however we cling to this: God has at all times seen sacred potential within the mud.
prayer of Breath
God of the Ashes,
Right now, allow us to maintain the strain of the story of our making – born of the grime, fantastically linked to the earth we stroll on. And but, possessing the data of our personal mortality – that our frequent decay can’t be escaped. As we start Lent, assist us to grow to be trustworthy in regards to the methods our societies and selfhoods are marred by injustice, cruelty, neglect, and greed. Assist us to see our personal position within the degeneration of the world; that as we push again evil round us, we would additionally admit these secret evils that dwell in us. As we title how we’ve been complicit within the ashes of this world, assist us to bear them in solidarity and hope. Amen.
breathe
Inhale: I’ll carry the ashes.
Exhale: God, deliver relaxation to the struggling.
Inhale: There’s breath in these ashes.
Exhale: No loss of life is remaining.
Ritual: Imposition of Ashes
From mud you got here, from mud you shall return.
songs (to be sung as folks come to get ashes)
Take, O take me as I’m
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my coronary heart
And stay in me
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace, alleluia!
My soul is at relaxation in God alone, my salvation comes from God.
Studying from 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10
music
Bushes We’ll By no means See by Amy Grant
prayer of blessing
(Written by Jan Richardson)
All these days
you felt like mud,
like grime,
as if all you needed to do
was flip your face
towards the wind
and be scattered
to the 4 corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with mud?
That is the day
we freely say
we’re scorched.
That is the hour
we’re marked
by what has made it
by way of the burning.
That is the second
we ask for the blessing
that lives inside
the traditional ashes,
that makes its dwelling
contained in the soil of
this sacred earth.
So allow us to be marked
not for sorrow.
And allow us to be marked
not for disgrace.
Allow us to be marked
not for false humility
or for considering
we’re much less
than we’re
however for claiming
what God can do
inside the mud,
inside the grime,
inside the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the celebs that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
contained in the smudge
we bear.
closing ritual
As you prepared your self to depart, take your pot to any of the flower stations. Select a flower to plant in your pot. Through the Lenten season, care for this flower and let it remind you to nurture your self in prayer. Water your prayer. Feed your prayer. And watch it proceed to bloom in hope, blossom in pleasure, and develop in love.
This Ash Wednesday service is concentrated on prayer. The rhythm of the service is Readings + Prayer + Ritual + Singing. As worshippers enter into service, instruct them to seize a pot, seed paper, and a pencil.
welcome
name to worship
(Written by Lisa Frenz. Congregation sings the sung response.)
Within the softness of night,
within the solace of silence we come to you, O Lord.
We come for acceptance;
we come for neighborhood;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response:
O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer;
after I name reply me. O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer; come and take heed to me.
Within the serenity of day’s finish,
within the restfulness of worship, we come to you O Lord.
We come to you for respite;
we come to you for completion;
we come to you for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
Within the quiet of the night time,
within the consolation of darkness we come to you, O Lord.
We come for peace;
we come for consolation;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
We come, O Lord of Gentle,
in search of the illumination of your Phrase.
We come for the trail we are able to’t discover;
we come for the life we don’t have.
We come to you for our lives are loss of life
and also you alone have breath and being.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
A studying from Psalm 51:1-17 (The Message)
Prayer of Forgiveness
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
At midnight of night time God calls to us;
beckoning us on,
in search of us out,
calling us to peace,
to quietness,
to wholeness.
The world is darkish round us,
stuffed with coldness, terror and restlessness.
It’s a darkness of our creation:
greed, hatred, envy: brokenness.
Take us and heal us of each evil.
Deliver us again into the consolation and closeness
of your embrace, O God.
Your cleaning love, O God,
purifies our darkness restoring it to us:
heat, comforting, restful: full.
At midnight of our night time we hear God name,
providing love and energy and forgiveness.
With God the darkness brings consolation not worry,
love not hatred,
righteousness not punishment.
Stroll within the darkness of your life as within the mild,
for each the darkish and the sunshine belong to God,
as do you. Amen.
ritual
Write on the seed paper what you need to say sorry. Select a pot to position your seed paper.
(As worshippers are writing on their seed paper, they’re invited to sing and take heed to the next music.)
music
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Solid me not away from Thy presence, O Lord
Take not Thy holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the enjoyment of Thy salvation
And renew a proper spirit inside me
A studying from the Gospel of Matthew 6:1-6 (The message)
prayer of silence
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
Into the silence of the void the Creator spoke,
and the world got here into being.
The Phrase of God within the vastness introduced mild from darkness,
matter from nothing,
flesh from mud,
life from lifelessness.
Within the quiet of a small city in Palestine
the Phrase of God got here to us.
Though of 1 being with the Creator,
Jesus our Christ, taking over human kind, was born,
lived and walked amongst us,
talking the phrases of life.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He rose from the useless and speaks to us at the moment.
He’s the one who saves us from ourselves.
Within the stillness of our souls the Spirit of God,
who’s one with the Creator and the Christ,
whispers the Phrase,
and calls us again to the Creator,
again to the Christ,
again to the wholeness of eternal life
within the unity of the Creator, Christ and Spirit.
ritual
In silence, come to the middle along with your pot and contact the grime, the grime from the place we come from. As you contact the grime, say no matter prayer is in your coronary heart. Scoop a handful of grime in your pot to cowl your seed paper. As you come back to your seat, let the silence communicate to you.
music (to come back out of the silence)
(A soloist sings the verses. The congregation sings the italicized response.)
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
O Root of Life, implant your seed inside us,
and in your introduction, draw us all to you,
our hope reborn in dying and in rising.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Come, allow us to bow earlier than the God who made us,
let ev’ry coronary heart be opened to the Lord,
for we’re all of the folks of his hand.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Right here we will meet the Maker of the heavens,
Creator of the mountains and the seas,
Lord of the celebs, and current to us now.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Studying from This Right here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
“Ashes to ashes, mud to mud.” When God spoke these phrases within the backyard, did their voice crack? Did their palms tremble because the ten knelt to make garments that will cowl the glory they birthed? These phrases got here to us as disgrace entered the world – and out of disgrace, all method of struggling. They weren’t a proclamation of punishment however a reminder of Eve and Adam’s finitude. It’s a poem of grief and reminiscence. Ashes to ashes, mud to mud. There’s magnificence in our humanity. Peer down within the cool, darkish ash; there’s loss of life there. Watch the particles carry and sway within the wind; there’s but life . . .
On Ash Wednesday we’re marked on our foreheads with a reminder of our mortality. The identical palms we increase up and wave on Palm Sunday annually are made to know the sting of loss of life – we burn them. And the next yr, in an ever-curious act, we decide up the ashes and we mark ourselves with them.
What does it imply that we don’t simply speak in regards to the ashes, and even reverently observe them, however that we bodily smear them throughout our faces? Maybe, within the marking, we strategy solidarity. We keep in mind that the identical destiny that haunts you, haunts me. The identical magnificence that birthed you, lives in me. And that this comes as a mark on the physique. I feel, reminds us that the Lenten journey of self-examination is deeply entwined with the bodily world. As we mark ourselves with these ashes, we remind ourselves that no grief is solitary. That what has stricken you can also be carried by me. We start our Lenten journey collectively, reminding each other that we’re these whose flesh grows again. We’re those that stay. It’s not simple, however we cling to this: God has at all times seen sacred potential within the mud.
prayer of Breath
God of the Ashes,
Right now, allow us to maintain the strain of the story of our making – born of the grime, fantastically linked to the earth we stroll on. And but, possessing the data of our personal mortality – that our frequent decay can’t be escaped. As we start Lent, assist us to grow to be trustworthy in regards to the methods our societies and selfhoods are marred by injustice, cruelty, neglect, and greed. Assist us to see our personal position within the degeneration of the world; that as we push again evil round us, we would additionally admit these secret evils that dwell in us. As we title how we’ve been complicit within the ashes of this world, assist us to bear them in solidarity and hope. Amen.
breathe
Inhale: I’ll carry the ashes.
Exhale: God, deliver relaxation to the struggling.
Inhale: There’s breath in these ashes.
Exhale: No loss of life is remaining.
Ritual: Imposition of Ashes
From mud you got here, from mud you shall return.
songs (to be sung as folks come to get ashes)
Take, O take me as I’m
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my coronary heart
And stay in me
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace, alleluia!
My soul is at relaxation in God alone, my salvation comes from God.
Studying from 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10
music
Bushes We’ll By no means See by Amy Grant
prayer of blessing
(Written by Jan Richardson)
All these days
you felt like mud,
like grime,
as if all you needed to do
was flip your face
towards the wind
and be scattered
to the 4 corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with mud?
That is the day
we freely say
we’re scorched.
That is the hour
we’re marked
by what has made it
by way of the burning.
That is the second
we ask for the blessing
that lives inside
the traditional ashes,
that makes its dwelling
contained in the soil of
this sacred earth.
So allow us to be marked
not for sorrow.
And allow us to be marked
not for disgrace.
Allow us to be marked
not for false humility
or for considering
we’re much less
than we’re
however for claiming
what God can do
inside the mud,
inside the grime,
inside the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the celebs that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
contained in the smudge
we bear.
closing ritual
As you prepared your self to depart, take your pot to any of the flower stations. Select a flower to plant in your pot. Through the Lenten season, care for this flower and let it remind you to nurture your self in prayer. Water your prayer. Feed your prayer. And watch it proceed to bloom in hope, blossom in pleasure, and develop in love.
This Ash Wednesday service is concentrated on prayer. The rhythm of the service is Readings + Prayer + Ritual + Singing. As worshippers enter into service, instruct them to seize a pot, seed paper, and a pencil.
welcome
name to worship
(Written by Lisa Frenz. Congregation sings the sung response.)
Within the softness of night,
within the solace of silence we come to you, O Lord.
We come for acceptance;
we come for neighborhood;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response:
O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer;
after I name reply me. O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer; come and take heed to me.
Within the serenity of day’s finish,
within the restfulness of worship, we come to you O Lord.
We come to you for respite;
we come to you for completion;
we come to you for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
Within the quiet of the night time,
within the consolation of darkness we come to you, O Lord.
We come for peace;
we come for consolation;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
We come, O Lord of Gentle,
in search of the illumination of your Phrase.
We come for the trail we are able to’t discover;
we come for the life we don’t have.
We come to you for our lives are loss of life
and also you alone have breath and being.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
A studying from Psalm 51:1-17 (The Message)
Prayer of Forgiveness
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
At midnight of night time God calls to us;
beckoning us on,
in search of us out,
calling us to peace,
to quietness,
to wholeness.
The world is darkish round us,
stuffed with coldness, terror and restlessness.
It’s a darkness of our creation:
greed, hatred, envy: brokenness.
Take us and heal us of each evil.
Deliver us again into the consolation and closeness
of your embrace, O God.
Your cleaning love, O God,
purifies our darkness restoring it to us:
heat, comforting, restful: full.
At midnight of our night time we hear God name,
providing love and energy and forgiveness.
With God the darkness brings consolation not worry,
love not hatred,
righteousness not punishment.
Stroll within the darkness of your life as within the mild,
for each the darkish and the sunshine belong to God,
as do you. Amen.
ritual
Write on the seed paper what you need to say sorry. Select a pot to position your seed paper.
(As worshippers are writing on their seed paper, they’re invited to sing and take heed to the next music.)
music
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Solid me not away from Thy presence, O Lord
Take not Thy holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the enjoyment of Thy salvation
And renew a proper spirit inside me
A studying from the Gospel of Matthew 6:1-6 (The message)
prayer of silence
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
Into the silence of the void the Creator spoke,
and the world got here into being.
The Phrase of God within the vastness introduced mild from darkness,
matter from nothing,
flesh from mud,
life from lifelessness.
Within the quiet of a small city in Palestine
the Phrase of God got here to us.
Though of 1 being with the Creator,
Jesus our Christ, taking over human kind, was born,
lived and walked amongst us,
talking the phrases of life.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He rose from the useless and speaks to us at the moment.
He’s the one who saves us from ourselves.
Within the stillness of our souls the Spirit of God,
who’s one with the Creator and the Christ,
whispers the Phrase,
and calls us again to the Creator,
again to the Christ,
again to the wholeness of eternal life
within the unity of the Creator, Christ and Spirit.
ritual
In silence, come to the middle along with your pot and contact the grime, the grime from the place we come from. As you contact the grime, say no matter prayer is in your coronary heart. Scoop a handful of grime in your pot to cowl your seed paper. As you come back to your seat, let the silence communicate to you.
music (to come back out of the silence)
(A soloist sings the verses. The congregation sings the italicized response.)
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
O Root of Life, implant your seed inside us,
and in your introduction, draw us all to you,
our hope reborn in dying and in rising.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Come, allow us to bow earlier than the God who made us,
let ev’ry coronary heart be opened to the Lord,
for we’re all of the folks of his hand.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Right here we will meet the Maker of the heavens,
Creator of the mountains and the seas,
Lord of the celebs, and current to us now.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Studying from This Right here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
“Ashes to ashes, mud to mud.” When God spoke these phrases within the backyard, did their voice crack? Did their palms tremble because the ten knelt to make garments that will cowl the glory they birthed? These phrases got here to us as disgrace entered the world – and out of disgrace, all method of struggling. They weren’t a proclamation of punishment however a reminder of Eve and Adam’s finitude. It’s a poem of grief and reminiscence. Ashes to ashes, mud to mud. There’s magnificence in our humanity. Peer down within the cool, darkish ash; there’s loss of life there. Watch the particles carry and sway within the wind; there’s but life . . .
On Ash Wednesday we’re marked on our foreheads with a reminder of our mortality. The identical palms we increase up and wave on Palm Sunday annually are made to know the sting of loss of life – we burn them. And the next yr, in an ever-curious act, we decide up the ashes and we mark ourselves with them.
What does it imply that we don’t simply speak in regards to the ashes, and even reverently observe them, however that we bodily smear them throughout our faces? Maybe, within the marking, we strategy solidarity. We keep in mind that the identical destiny that haunts you, haunts me. The identical magnificence that birthed you, lives in me. And that this comes as a mark on the physique. I feel, reminds us that the Lenten journey of self-examination is deeply entwined with the bodily world. As we mark ourselves with these ashes, we remind ourselves that no grief is solitary. That what has stricken you can also be carried by me. We start our Lenten journey collectively, reminding each other that we’re these whose flesh grows again. We’re those that stay. It’s not simple, however we cling to this: God has at all times seen sacred potential within the mud.
prayer of Breath
God of the Ashes,
Right now, allow us to maintain the strain of the story of our making – born of the grime, fantastically linked to the earth we stroll on. And but, possessing the data of our personal mortality – that our frequent decay can’t be escaped. As we start Lent, assist us to grow to be trustworthy in regards to the methods our societies and selfhoods are marred by injustice, cruelty, neglect, and greed. Assist us to see our personal position within the degeneration of the world; that as we push again evil round us, we would additionally admit these secret evils that dwell in us. As we title how we’ve been complicit within the ashes of this world, assist us to bear them in solidarity and hope. Amen.
breathe
Inhale: I’ll carry the ashes.
Exhale: God, deliver relaxation to the struggling.
Inhale: There’s breath in these ashes.
Exhale: No loss of life is remaining.
Ritual: Imposition of Ashes
From mud you got here, from mud you shall return.
songs (to be sung as folks come to get ashes)
Take, O take me as I’m
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my coronary heart
And stay in me
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace, alleluia!
My soul is at relaxation in God alone, my salvation comes from God.
Studying from 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10
music
Bushes We’ll By no means See by Amy Grant
prayer of blessing
(Written by Jan Richardson)
All these days
you felt like mud,
like grime,
as if all you needed to do
was flip your face
towards the wind
and be scattered
to the 4 corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with mud?
That is the day
we freely say
we’re scorched.
That is the hour
we’re marked
by what has made it
by way of the burning.
That is the second
we ask for the blessing
that lives inside
the traditional ashes,
that makes its dwelling
contained in the soil of
this sacred earth.
So allow us to be marked
not for sorrow.
And allow us to be marked
not for disgrace.
Allow us to be marked
not for false humility
or for considering
we’re much less
than we’re
however for claiming
what God can do
inside the mud,
inside the grime,
inside the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the celebs that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
contained in the smudge
we bear.
closing ritual
As you prepared your self to depart, take your pot to any of the flower stations. Select a flower to plant in your pot. Through the Lenten season, care for this flower and let it remind you to nurture your self in prayer. Water your prayer. Feed your prayer. And watch it proceed to bloom in hope, blossom in pleasure, and develop in love.
This Ash Wednesday service is concentrated on prayer. The rhythm of the service is Readings + Prayer + Ritual + Singing. As worshippers enter into service, instruct them to seize a pot, seed paper, and a pencil.
welcome
name to worship
(Written by Lisa Frenz. Congregation sings the sung response.)
Within the softness of night,
within the solace of silence we come to you, O Lord.
We come for acceptance;
we come for neighborhood;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response:
O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer;
after I name reply me. O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer; come and take heed to me.
Within the serenity of day’s finish,
within the restfulness of worship, we come to you O Lord.
We come to you for respite;
we come to you for completion;
we come to you for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
Within the quiet of the night time,
within the consolation of darkness we come to you, O Lord.
We come for peace;
we come for consolation;
we come for forgiveness and love.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
We come, O Lord of Gentle,
in search of the illumination of your Phrase.
We come for the trail we are able to’t discover;
we come for the life we don’t have.
We come to you for our lives are loss of life
and also you alone have breath and being.
Sung response: O Lord, Hear My Prayer
A studying from Psalm 51:1-17 (The Message)
Prayer of Forgiveness
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
At midnight of night time God calls to us;
beckoning us on,
in search of us out,
calling us to peace,
to quietness,
to wholeness.
The world is darkish round us,
stuffed with coldness, terror and restlessness.
It’s a darkness of our creation:
greed, hatred, envy: brokenness.
Take us and heal us of each evil.
Deliver us again into the consolation and closeness
of your embrace, O God.
Your cleaning love, O God,
purifies our darkness restoring it to us:
heat, comforting, restful: full.
At midnight of our night time we hear God name,
providing love and energy and forgiveness.
With God the darkness brings consolation not worry,
love not hatred,
righteousness not punishment.
Stroll within the darkness of your life as within the mild,
for each the darkish and the sunshine belong to God,
as do you. Amen.
ritual
Write on the seed paper what you need to say sorry. Select a pot to position your seed paper.
(As worshippers are writing on their seed paper, they’re invited to sing and take heed to the next music.)
music
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Create in me a clear coronary heart, O God
And renew a proper spirit inside me
Solid me not away from Thy presence, O Lord
Take not Thy holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the enjoyment of Thy salvation
And renew a proper spirit inside me
A studying from the Gospel of Matthew 6:1-6 (The message)
prayer of silence
(Written by Lisa Frenz. The BOLD is the congregational response.)
Into the silence of the void the Creator spoke,
and the world got here into being.
The Phrase of God within the vastness introduced mild from darkness,
matter from nothing,
flesh from mud,
life from lifelessness.
Within the quiet of a small city in Palestine
the Phrase of God got here to us.
Though of 1 being with the Creator,
Jesus our Christ, taking over human kind, was born,
lived and walked amongst us,
talking the phrases of life.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
He rose from the useless and speaks to us at the moment.
He’s the one who saves us from ourselves.
Within the stillness of our souls the Spirit of God,
who’s one with the Creator and the Christ,
whispers the Phrase,
and calls us again to the Creator,
again to the Christ,
again to the wholeness of eternal life
within the unity of the Creator, Christ and Spirit.
ritual
In silence, come to the middle along with your pot and contact the grime, the grime from the place we come from. As you contact the grime, say no matter prayer is in your coronary heart. Scoop a handful of grime in your pot to cowl your seed paper. As you come back to your seat, let the silence communicate to you.
music (to come back out of the silence)
(A soloist sings the verses. The congregation sings the italicized response.)
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
O Root of Life, implant your seed inside us,
and in your introduction, draw us all to you,
our hope reborn in dying and in rising.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Come, allow us to bow earlier than the God who made us,
let ev’ry coronary heart be opened to the Lord,
for we’re all of the folks of his hand.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Right here we will meet the Maker of the heavens,
Creator of the mountains and the seas,
Lord of the celebs, and current to us now.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
really my hope is in you.
Studying from This Right here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
“Ashes to ashes, mud to mud.” When God spoke these phrases within the backyard, did their voice crack? Did their palms tremble because the ten knelt to make garments that will cowl the glory they birthed? These phrases got here to us as disgrace entered the world – and out of disgrace, all method of struggling. They weren’t a proclamation of punishment however a reminder of Eve and Adam’s finitude. It’s a poem of grief and reminiscence. Ashes to ashes, mud to mud. There’s magnificence in our humanity. Peer down within the cool, darkish ash; there’s loss of life there. Watch the particles carry and sway within the wind; there’s but life . . .
On Ash Wednesday we’re marked on our foreheads with a reminder of our mortality. The identical palms we increase up and wave on Palm Sunday annually are made to know the sting of loss of life – we burn them. And the next yr, in an ever-curious act, we decide up the ashes and we mark ourselves with them.
What does it imply that we don’t simply speak in regards to the ashes, and even reverently observe them, however that we bodily smear them throughout our faces? Maybe, within the marking, we strategy solidarity. We keep in mind that the identical destiny that haunts you, haunts me. The identical magnificence that birthed you, lives in me. And that this comes as a mark on the physique. I feel, reminds us that the Lenten journey of self-examination is deeply entwined with the bodily world. As we mark ourselves with these ashes, we remind ourselves that no grief is solitary. That what has stricken you can also be carried by me. We start our Lenten journey collectively, reminding each other that we’re these whose flesh grows again. We’re those that stay. It’s not simple, however we cling to this: God has at all times seen sacred potential within the mud.
prayer of Breath
God of the Ashes,
Right now, allow us to maintain the strain of the story of our making – born of the grime, fantastically linked to the earth we stroll on. And but, possessing the data of our personal mortality – that our frequent decay can’t be escaped. As we start Lent, assist us to grow to be trustworthy in regards to the methods our societies and selfhoods are marred by injustice, cruelty, neglect, and greed. Assist us to see our personal position within the degeneration of the world; that as we push again evil round us, we would additionally admit these secret evils that dwell in us. As we title how we’ve been complicit within the ashes of this world, assist us to bear them in solidarity and hope. Amen.
breathe
Inhale: I’ll carry the ashes.
Exhale: God, deliver relaxation to the struggling.
Inhale: There’s breath in these ashes.
Exhale: No loss of life is remaining.
Ritual: Imposition of Ashes
From mud you got here, from mud you shall return.
songs (to be sung as folks come to get ashes)
Take, O take me as I’m
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my coronary heart
And stay in me
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come & fill our hearts along with your peace, alleluia!
My soul is at relaxation in God alone, my salvation comes from God.
Studying from 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10
music
Bushes We’ll By no means See by Amy Grant
prayer of blessing
(Written by Jan Richardson)
All these days
you felt like mud,
like grime,
as if all you needed to do
was flip your face
towards the wind
and be scattered
to the 4 corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with mud?
That is the day
we freely say
we’re scorched.
That is the hour
we’re marked
by what has made it
by way of the burning.
That is the second
we ask for the blessing
that lives inside
the traditional ashes,
that makes its dwelling
contained in the soil of
this sacred earth.
So allow us to be marked
not for sorrow.
And allow us to be marked
not for disgrace.
Allow us to be marked
not for false humility
or for considering
we’re much less
than we’re
however for claiming
what God can do
inside the mud,
inside the grime,
inside the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the celebs that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
contained in the smudge
we bear.
closing ritual
As you prepared your self to depart, take your pot to any of the flower stations. Select a flower to plant in your pot. Through the Lenten season, care for this flower and let it remind you to nurture your self in prayer. Water your prayer. Feed your prayer. And watch it proceed to bloom in hope, blossom in pleasure, and develop in love.
