Archives for March 2017

Hosanna to the Lord

03.22.2017 by Heather Prince Doss //

We sing mostly hymns and global music at Eliot. (We’d be open to more contemporary music. Currently we do not have a praise band, but our African and Cambodian drummers are fantastic.) I was feeling a little bored with the usual Palm Sunday hymns and not finding anything new that I was very excited about for a grand opening song. I wrote these new lyrics to Charles Wesley’s excellent “Rejoice, the Lord is King.”

Find the lyrics below, or download a PDF with lyrics and music.

Hosanna to the Lord, who rides on humble steed;
Rejoice our king is come, now follow where he leads.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice! Rejoice, again, I say rejoice!

Blest be the king of God, who comes in God’s own name;
He rules with peace; the earth shall never be the same.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice! Rejoice, again, I say rejoice!

The earth itself shall sing; the stones break forth in song;
For Christ who fears not death does triumph over wrong.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice! Rejoice, again, I say rejoice!

Hosanna to the King with branches waving high;
He sheds the cloak of glory, riding on to die.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice! Rejoice, again, I say rejoice!

For non-commercial purposes, you are welcome to use the lyrics for free as long as you list me as the author of the verses. The refrain and music are in the public domain. For commercial uses, please contact me.

Ash Wednesday Prayer Stations

03.20.2017 by Heather Prince Doss //

On Ash Wednesday this year, our worship service was centered around six prayer stations. We began the service in our usual fashion: call to worship, opening prayer, hymn, litany of confession and forgiveness, sung response, prayer of illumination, and Scripture reading. Instead of a sermon, however, worshipers spent 20 minutes moving between six prayer stations that were set up around the sanctuary. The stations were organized to reflect the movement of worship: creation, confession, centering, remembering, and sending. After 20 minutes, I led a pastoral prayer before the closing hymn and benediction.

The set-up for each station is included below. Click on the title to download a PDF file with instructions for worshipers and any other printed resources for that station.

Fountain of Life

I set up a table-top fountain with stones. Scripture verses related to creation were scattered on the table around the fountain.

Embodied Jesus Prayer

I had planned to have drawings of the Jesus Prayer in American Sign Language. When I could not find images or draw them myself, I gave up and made this pretty terrible video of the Jesus Prayer in sign language. The quality of the video is terrible, but it worked much better than illustrations would have. I cannot say for certain that these are accurate ASL signs, but I think they are close. I used a projector to show this video in a continual loop on a wall so that worshipers could come up at any time to learn the prayer. You could show my video or make your own that looks better.

Mandala Quilt

This station involves coloring mandalas as a way of finding our centeredness in Christ. I set up a table with instructions, mandalas (already cut into 5″ squares), colored pencils, and glue sticks. I used an easel to hold a sheet of black poster-board so that people could glue on their mandalas and make a quilt.

Returning to Dust

This station requires burning paper, so check with your building committee first. (Or go with the “ask forgiveness” route, like I did.) You will want a fairly deep metal bowl filled about halfway with sand. Put a single candle in the center so that it does not stand taller than the rim of the bowl. On the table around the bowl, place strips of blank paper and pencils, along with instructions. I also kept a pitcher of water nearby, in case of emergency.

Imposition of Ashes

I included imposition of ashes among the six stations. I gave the ashen cross to each worshiper as they came forward and then gave them a guide for meditation.

Bread for the Journey

Here worshipers had an opportunity to engage their sense of taste. Homemade bread would be best, and should be already sliced. Even better if you can bake it at church so it smells nice, too. I filled bathroom-sized paper cups with water and left a few extra and a pitcher on the table. The scripture verses were scattered around the table.

A word on setting up the worship space:
Our sanctuary is fairly large and has a reasonable amount of open space. I brought in a few small folding tables and set them up as needed. Only the Mandala station had chairs, too. I chose to use the sanctuary instead of our gym because of the sacred feeling of the space. We had 30 worshipers, and the sanctuary worked well. If we had more than 30, I would have needed to duplicate some of the stations to accommodate everyone and might have needed a larger space with more flexible furnishings.

I printed 2 copies of instructions for each station. In retrospect, it would have been better if each worshiper had his/her own copy of all instructions, maybe with some journaling space. This would have made it easier for everyone to read and re-read the instructions without bumping into one another as much.

Before people started moving around, I explained that I would ring a bell every 3 minutes to help people have a sense of how much time to spend at each station. I also explained that no one was bound to move at the bell, but that each person could stay at the stations as long (or as briefly) as desired. I played recorded instrumental Taize music in the background.

Credits:
The Fountain of Life, Embodied Jesus Prayer, Mandala Quilt, and Bread for the Journey were adapted from prayer stations developed by Deb Guess and used at Presbyterian Youth Triennium in 2016. You can find all the resources from the PYT Prayer Center here.

Returning to Dust was adapted from a prayer station by Theresa Cho, found on her blog.

Getting to Know Each Other

03.02.2017 by Heather Prince Doss //

Once Americans were anonymous to elites and transparent to their neighbors, now corporations know everything about them—and their neighbors know next to nothing.

This statement, taken from a recent article by Joshua Foust struck me as profoundly relevant today. I know the names of my literal neighbors, but only a little about who they are as people. They know equally little about me.

I have not given much thought about what I might give up for Lent or what new discipline I might take on. (I rarely keep those intentions, anyway.) But last night (on Ash Wednesday), I had the opportunity to let 15 people get to know me a little bit. Even though I am in the habit of speaking publicly, it felt vulnerable. I was nervous. Reading this article, however, I felt convicted. Perhaps it was no accident that my “story of self” was delivered on Ash Wednesday. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile discipline in these 40 days to get to know my neighbors a little better and to let them know me. To that end, here is the story I shared last night:

I am sitting in my office at the J.L. Zwane Church and Community Center in Guguletu, South Africa. (That’s a township outside of Cape Town.) The secretary knocks on my door and introduces me quickly to three people: a black woman, a white woman, and a white man. She asks if I will give these guests a tour. We walk through the worship space, and I tell the couple about how this church is supporting women in ministry: unique among the township churches. We walk through the brightly painted youth area, and I tell them how the youth choir not only sings about faith but travels to schools and sings about safe sex. In the offices, I tell them about the hospice nurse on the church staff and how this congregation welcomes people affected by HIV and AIDS. As we catch a whiff of curry and fry bread coming from the kitchen, I tell them about the children we feed in the afterschool program. This church is doing something that matters. I may be just the seminary intern, but I believe in the work. I want this couple to believe in our work, too. And I want them to support us and to spread the word.

We are wrapping up our conversation in the breezeway off the courtyard when the rain begins to fall. I look at the white couple and thank them for coming. I am just about to tell them how they can be involved. My sales pitch is going great. Suddenly, the man interrupts me. “Oh, actually,” he says, “this is my wife,” pointing to the black woman.

In a split second, I replay the entirety of our conversation. My stomach drops. A knot forms in my throat. I realize that I have subtly and unintentionally been excluding the black woman from any meaningful participation in the conversation because I assumed she had less to offer than the other two.

I am mortified and ashamed. I was raised better than this. As a child, my mother would not let me play in the home of a classmate whose family flew the Confederate flag. When I was middle school, my dad and Shateka’s dad co-coached our softball team. In college, I wrote my senior thesis in college on racism, identity, and reconciliation. How could I make such a mistake?

With the rain falling being us, I shift my weight nervously from one foot to the other. I swallow the knot in my throat and stumble through an apology. It must seem half-baked or like salt rubbed in an old wound. I do not stumble because my apology is false or half-hearted. I stumble because this encounter has held up a mirror to my soul, and I do not like what I see. I walk away resolved that something must change, not only in me but also in the culture that helped shape me.