22 May Online worship resources for Sunday 24 May

Posted at 18:37h in Worship by

Welcome to Richmond Uniting’s Worship resources for Sunday 24 May.

We are currently not worshipping as a gathered community due to the COVID–19 pandemic – but we are still worshipping together in new ways. Below you will find an audio recording that can be used for worship at home for 24 May as well as a table liturgy. You can worship with others or on your own.

Reflecting on Psalm 68.1-10, 32-35, 1 Peter 4.12-14, 5.6-11, John 17.1-11

Where is God in Anxiety and suffering?

In this weeks form of audio worship Rev Dr Sally Douglas introduces a Table Liturgy and invites you to participate at home in this worship over a meal. See the PDF of the Table Liturgy below.

This week the audio worship does not include a full service, because we are all invited to utilise this Table Liturgy. Instead, the audio includes the bible readings for the day, and a reflection on the reading from 1 Peter focused on the question of where God is in the midst of anxiety and suffering.

Listen to this week’s service using the embedded player below. You can also copy this link into your podcast player of choice if you would like to receive updates as they are released: https://anchor.fm/s/c70d97c/podcast/rss

Table Liturgy for the Easter Season

Background:

Evidence indicates that in the early church people gathered for worship in homes, over meals. You are invited to print out this Table liturgy for the Easter Season and utilise it for worship over a meal either alone, or with others, at home on Sunday 24th May the 7th Sunday in the Easter season. This simple worship service is grounded in John’s Gospel. It focuses on Jesus’ words, declared in the midst of ministry that he is the bread of life and on Jesus’ declaration of being the true vine. While the liturgy includes bread and juice, it is does not include Holy Communion. John’s Gospel does not include an account of the last supper Eucharist.

This liturgy includes prayers, pauses, spaces for song, for personal reflection and for shared discussion, if you are eating with others. If you are engaging in this worship alone, you may wish to have pencil and paper on the table, so that after the Gospel reading you can write or sketch about your ideas, questions and insights as you eat.

In preparation for this worship you are invited to gather a candle, bread and juice, a bible and some tea light candles if you would like to light them during the prayers for others.

Suggestions for music for worship

These songs are often seen as twee these days. But perhaps they might disrupt our narratives of self-sufficiency and help us to take seriously the call to ‘cast our anxieties upon God because God cares about us’ (1 Peter 5.7)?

 What a friend we have in Jesus by Joseph Medlicott Scrivel

(590 Together in Song) This version is sung by Willie Nelson

In the Garden based on the hymn by C. Austin Miles

This version sung by The Welcome Wagon

Wondering questions for the Week:

  • Where is God in suffering for you?
  • What might it mean for your understandings of God, to reflect on how God enters our suffering in Jesus and births risen life from this space?
  • How might you cast all your anxiety onto God, knowing that God cares for you?
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