Friday, April 24, 2020

ANEW2-They'll Know we're Christians (by social distancing)



Agenda for April 25 Zoom ANEW2 gathering
Welcome by Cindy
Opening Prayers
Intros
They’ll Know we are Christians (presentation by Cindy)
Sharing ways your worship was different, enriched, deepened by the Lent/Easter of COVID19
Sharing things you or church doing to reach out in social distancing

Closing prayer (Lord's Prayer)

Opening Prayers (Adapted from the New Zealand Prayer Book: Daily Prayers for Saturday Morning)
Opening AcclamationSave us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
Reading from 1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Prayers
Giver of the present, hope for the future: save us from the time of trial. When prophets warn us of doom, of catastrophe and of suffering beyond belief, then, God, free us from our helplessness, and deliver us from evil. Save us from our arrogance and folly, for you are God who created the world; you have redeemed us and you are our salvation.
Almighty God, you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.
God of opportunity and change, praise to you for giving us life at this critical time. As our horizons extend, keep us loyal to our past; as our dangers increase, help us to prepare the future; keep us trusting and hopeful, ready to recognize your kingdom as it comes. Amen.
(from DOK National website by Cameron Wiggins Bell)
May we who are merely inconvenienced
remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close
remember those children who will go hungry with no school meals.
May we who have to cancel our trips
remember those with no place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for quarantine at home
remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country, let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other
let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbor.
Through Jesus Christ, whose arms of love embraces us all. Amen.

Upcoming Events
•May 23 Zoom: God in Uncertain Times (the Very Rev. Kristi Maulden)
•June 27 Zoom: Worship Beyond Church Walls (Linda Rounds-Nichols)
•July 25 Zoom: Telling Our Story (leader TBA)
•Aug. 22 Zoom: What's New? What's the Same? (leader TBA)
•Nov. 20-21: Bosque Center Retreat: Wildernesses with Carolyn Metzler

•Weekly E-Study based on the Book of Revelation starting May 1. (sign up by emailing wdrgstudy@gmail.com)