Worship on the Go Red Door Church's Mobile Liturgy Lent 2021
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Worship on the Go Red Door Church’s Mobile Liturgy Lent 2021 Put together by the elders of Red Door Church “Loving God, Loving Neighbor” How to Use this Booklet The purpose of this booklet is simply to facilitate personal and family worship. We want to do that by giving you an order of worship that is easy to follow. Some may find a booklet like this unnecessary or even unhelpful because they desire a free form in their worship. That is okay! This book is intended merely to be a guide or even a launching pad for worship. Use it in whatever way you find useful, but here is what we suggest: If you know you are going to miss church on a particular Sunday, bring the mobile liturgy booklet with you. If possible, set aside 30 minutes at some point on that Sunday to go through the order of worship for that day by yourself or with your family at home, in the hotel, on the camping trail, or wherever you may be. The time does not need to be in the morning. The important thing is that you try and find a half-an-hour to focus on God, whether it’s early or late. This particular booklet was designed during the Covid-19 crisis of the 2021 calendar season. It can be used in conjunction with the Facebook Live broadcasts that Red Door Church will be putting on during Holy Week and Easter season, though it will not follow our in-person worship services exactly. We do now offer an online bulletin that may be of use to those who wish to tune in online and have something in their hands. You can find that at www.unitedchurchofsoro.org/bulletin. However, if you cannot tune in to Facebook Live and participate in worship with us, the book can still be used as a guide for you to follow by yourself or with a group. You may add or subtract or modify the order as you sense God’s Spirit leading you or as you may need given your situation. The “Additional Info” sections are there for those who are interested in learning a bit more about the liturgical backdrop. You will also find in that section interesting stories about some of the selected hymns of the season. The readings are pulled from the Revised Common Lectionary and follow themes from the Christian calendar year. These readings and themes unite the Christian church in worship across the world and across the centuries. 2 | P a g e Red Door Church’s Mobile Liturgy – Lent 2021 The church calendar begins with Advent, a four-week season focused on anticipating the coming of Christ at Christmas. Next comes Christmas itself, a short season that runs from December 25 through January 5, celebrating the incarnation of Christ. The third season is Epiphany, a celebration of light and the witness of Christ to the whole world. Then follows Lent, the forty-day season leading up to Easter, when we focus on repentance from sin and reflect on Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. This culminates in Good Friday and the dark Saturday between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Following Lent comes Easter, the celebratory season of fifty days when we rejoice in resurrection life. Then the church year is capped off by the lengthy season of Pentecost, which focuses on living the Christian life through the power of the Holy Spirit. I am indebted to elder Russ Rohloff for his many contributions to this booklet. I pray that his theological and liturgical insights enrich the seasonal experience for you. May the Lord richly bless you as you seek His face. Pastor Josh Moore “Loving God, Loving Neighbor” THE SEASON OF LENT SUMMARY The keeping of days, times or seasons must be based on the divine action and revelation of God if it is not to interfere with God’s work in our hearts. Thus the Church has, since earliest times, celebrated the Paschal cycle. In it we remember that “Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us” (I Corinthians 5:7). This marks the very work of God’s salvation in the earth made possible by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Mankind had been separated from God by their sin and was without hope in this world. The continual offering of the blood of bulls and goats was insufficient to atone for the transgression. It required a supremely more perfect sacrifice, a divine sacrifice of the blood of the only begotten Son of God to accomplish redemption. It required Jesus who was that “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Informally the season starts on Septuagesima Sunday which marks out a period of about seventy days before the celebration of the Resurrection. The next two Sundays before Lent, Sexagesima (sixtieth) and Quinquagesima (fiftieth) remind us of the transition made in the Church year from the celebration of the Lord’s birth and epiphany (manifestation) to the world, and the season of preparation for recalling His all-sufficient sacrifice. Formally, Lent (an Old English word meaning spring) begins on Ash Wednesday. The day is marked by the placing of ashes on the heads of the faithful in the sign of the cross with the words “Remember, O man (or woman), that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” It is a pronouncement of death upon us, the recognition of the consequences of our sin. The words should carry with them the same dread and sorrow which they did when Adam and Eve first heard them from the very mouth of God. Unless God is gracious, the enormity of our sin will swallow us alive and carry us down to the grave. Ashes have always been a sign of frailty and transience (consider the grass thrown into the oven in Matthew 6:30). They also speak of mourning and repentance when seeking the favor of God (consider Esther 4:1 or Jonah 3:4-9). The ashes used in the Wednesday service come from burning the palms which were used during last year’s Palm Sunday celebration. Thus the symbols of our rejoicing now become the symbols of humble repentance under the hand of God. Lent marks 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. We do not mark the Sundays in Lent because it was on Sunday that the Lord rose from the dead breaking the power of sin, Satan, and death. For the Church Sunday is a day of rest and rejoicing. Forty is a 4 | P a g e Red Door Church’s Mobile Liturgy – Lent 2021 sacred number, 4 being the symbol of the earth and 10 the symbol of the complete judgment of God. Forty days marked the deluge that cleansed the earth in the time of Noah; forty years the wandering of the Jews in the wilderness to purge their unbelief; forty days the fasting and warfare of Jesus against Satan in the wilderness. The other weekdays are marked by special prayer, fasting, self discipline in striving against sin, and sacrificial giving. The Church has historically prescribed the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as powerful weapons in the fight against self-centeredness and indulgence. These must be applied for spiritual reasons, for the Apostle Paul reminds us that “bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things…” I Timothy 4:8. May we welcome these 40 days for our use as a time in which “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge(s) our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Hebrews 9:14). The sanctuary color for Lent is primarily purple. The Scriptures tell us that a purple garment was placed on Jesus during his suffering as a mockery. It is fitting that we use the color as we focus on the reality of our sin that stands in contrast to the love and goodness of God. The color purple and the days of repentance will finally give way to the color white and the celebration of Christ’s victory over sin and our deliverance once and for all. The lectionary readings during this season remind us that we have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed in our struggle against sin; and that Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, but He remained sinless even to the point of enduring death on the cross. “Loving God, Loving Neighbor” February 17, 2021 Ash Wednesday Opening Prayer Almighty and everlasting God, Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, rightly lamenting our sins and acknowledging our depravity, may receive from you, the God of all mercy, perfect forgiveness as you have promised; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Old Testament Reading: Joel 2:1-2; 12-17 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.