Below is the Order of Service which I have been using for the worship service at Fern Gardens Community. I will add more at a later time but wanted to get this out there as I like it a lot and would love to share it with many. The "Why" will be forthcoming. RV
Order of Service BCFG 28 Feb 2013
Entrance and Greeting
This Is The Day - That The Lord Has Made Ps 118:24
In the name … May the Grace of our Lord..Love of God the Father….Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.. be with you All!
“Sing a New Song” Ps 98
Confession…It is a Good thing
I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault . In my thoughts and in my words, In what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.
May almighty God have mercy on us, Forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen
God is a Great God and knows our every need…He knows our weakness and yet still Loves us. Our Lord gave His life willingly for us. Forgiveness from sin and failure is available this very day. Jesus rose from the grave after giving His life for His creation. We are forgiven and free to live in a New way. Christ is born. Christ is risen!
Gloria (Lu 2:14) Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father. Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us; You are seated at the right hand of the Father: receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the Glory of God the Father. Amen
Readings Epistle (Phil 3:17);(Heb 12:2) Gospel (Lu13:31)
Nicene Creed-We believe in one God, the Father, The Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, One in Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered died and was buried. On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures; He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and Son He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen!
Eucharistic Liturgy…The Good news of Christ..
May the Lord accept the offering at my hands for the praise and glory of His Name, for our good, and the good of All His Church.
The Lord be with you! …Lift up Your Hearts!…Let us give thanks to the Lord our God!…It is right to give Him thanks and Praise!
Holy..Holy…Holy Lord..God of power and Might Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. H..H..in the Highest!
Whenever we are tempted to exault our own importance, to think of ourselves more highly than we ought; grant us a measure of your own humility, that we might be more anxious to serve than to be served, more ready to give than to want - Lord Jesus, fix our thoughts on you as we pray the prayer You taught us---
Our Father. + Deliver Us Lord from every evil and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy and grace keep us free from sin and protect us from ALL anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus the Christ! Lu 11:1 - May the peace of the Lord be with you always!
Words of institution (Mat26:26) And while they were eating…, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing,He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, Eat: This Is My Body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Proclamation…
This IS the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…Happy are those who are called to His supper.
Received by Faith (Mt 8:5) LORD I am not worthy to receive you, But only say the word and I shall be healed!
Welcome to the table of the Lord! Served as we serve one another!
Song of the Body of Christ!
Benediction. The Lord Bless you…And Keep You..The Lord make His face to shine upon you…and be gracious to you..The Lord lift up His countenance on you And give you (His)Peace
Let Us All Go in Peace to Love and serve…the Lord AND One Another!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
This Is The Day...That The Lord Has Made!
How can each of us make this a day within which we have done something to make our Lord happy with our part of His creation? Love! Can it really be that simple? Yes! I believe that it is so simple, but not simplistically so. In December of 2012 I went on line to receive my ordination by the ULC, Universal Life Church, of Modesto, California. My son, Michael, did this a few years ago to be legally able to officiate at his sister Alexandria's marriage. I looked at their website and mission statement and decided to do the same. My reasoning is that the past year or so I have been doing a fair amount of chaplaincy work at our local hospitals and felt it would be good to have a Rev in my name. I thought quite a bit about this step. I did want the legal status for ministerial flexibility but did not in any way to dismiss the honor and respect I have for many "professional" clergy with whom I am acquainted. I pray that none of them will take offense and that what ministering I am led to will be a blessing to the body of Christ.
Shortly after receiving my ordination I was asked to minister to a "memory center" senior living facility in Medford. I am in the process of tweaking a worship service which will be a blessing to them and so far am quite encouraged. They seem to be very engaged and happy at my efforts, with the Grace of Christ. One day at a time! Pax Christi! RV
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The Nature of Prayer 101
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2013. The first post here is to again highlight my mentor Richard and on of his daily meditations regarding "Prayer". This is so beautiful and gracious I thought it would be a good way to start off this "Year of Transformation". Pax Christi RV. http://conta.cc/WdkCj5
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Let Us Have Peace!
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Merry Christ Mas!
http://conta.cc/RVCpMG I hope that this "easy" post isn't seen as such. I find the wisdom and purity of Richard's reflections to be very supportive of my spiritual walk and I hope it may be for you as well. My prayer for this Christmas season is that the total peace of the Cosmic Christ will imbue all of us with a Peace which surpasses all understanding. When one can release the ego to such an extent and rest in the Peace of Christ, Loving all is is a very fulfilling state. Who would have known that I would be on such a "mystic" path at this point in my life? Merry Christ mas! Maybe this "Mayan 2012" Christmas will be the second greatest yet. Pax Christe! RV
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Piggyback wisdom ("Footprints in the Sand")
So here is an item link to a daily reflection by Richard. It occurs to me that shareing the works of this fine thinker with this blog should give it more depth. Also he is a far more faithful poster than I and if I make a comment or two that would be a fruitful thing to do. It seems that if you choose to observe his post you need to click on the link posted here. Doable, right? In this post I see that he is seeing the composite nature of mankind. He can see the Conservative plus points as well as the Liberal ones. Balance is what this image of God is all about. Enjoy! RVhttp://conta.cc/TyZO4X
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Peace or PAX CHRISTI is Possible?
So I'm attempting to add two photos to this post and they seem to be rather skewed. If you read the post all the way down the pictures should make sense and the skew shouldn't matter. This has been a busy month and I'm very happy to be home for the month of December. So here goes the post begun far to the Southeast.
Greetings in the name of One Love from Negril Jamaica! A group of friends are finishing up a couple of weeks in this Island country working with the literacy program of Great Shape. This is a fine Non-profit humanitarian outreach started over 20 years ago from Ashland. We have spent a couple of weeks in the schools near this Westerly most coast of Jamaica. Working with the children of the world to me is one of the most Godly activities to which one can endeavor. Children are the key to transcendence to a higher plane of existence. I have noted here before the fondness I have for the island peoples and most especially the work and philosophy of Robert Nester (Bob) Marley. I feel his “One Love” concept focusing on a social justice and back to nature spirituality has a close connection to the “Emerging” movement I have so often espoused on this blog/journal. There is a concept of “Respect” operating on this island and in the Rasta movement worldwide which is very simple and offers a level of understanding for the “Other” which is very refreshing in this judgemental and polarized world of ours. This can also devolve into a kind of loosey goosey euphoria of “getting high” and every little thing will be all right mentality. It seems that this party attitude is not really what Bob was espousing in his life and work although in practice it seems sometimes that was his path as well. Ganga, or anything, in excess can have that effect. In this post I would like to look at some of Bob’s work and how it relates to the Gospel of Love which is my guiding light at this point in my life.
Brian McLaren has released a new book which I am finding very supportive and rich in Love. The title is “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? “. I will include several snippets from my readings so far as I feel they are also in line with Bob’s work. I am a pretty simple man and not nearly as educated in theological matters as I would like. However I do respect scholarship and appreciate the cohesiveness of the beauty of the Spirits work “from age to age” spanning the entire history of man and including the dawn of creation to the present days of transformation. In spite of our incremental failures in becoming truly renewed or born again I am confident that God’s not done with us yet and a major transformation toward the Peace of the Christ is unfolding, and again children are a key to that movement. Brian is a great scholar but also is very grounded in the totality and pervasiveness of the Spirit working among us. If there is simplified common theme in this latest book I would have to state it as one of “respect for the other” and a willingness to see the movement of the Holy Spirit within all creation. He also seeks to define the need for a reframed and vibrant religious community (all of them) ….”the antidote to strong-hostile religion is not weak-benign religion, but strong- benevolent religion.”
In my work with the children of Jamaica I have framed my purpose for being there in the life and work of Bob Marley. Principle in that framework is the idea of “One Love”. One Love as he wrote it and One Love as it has spread around the world. At the turn of the century that song was voted the “Song of the Millennium” Primary in that acceptance was the impact it had in the ’third World” in the realm of social justice and peace. This accolade was granted almost thirty years after his death. I find that important. Bob was very influenced by social unrest in the United States as well as his native Jamaica. Of course there were many prophets during those years besides Bob from Peter, Paul and Mary to Bob Dillon but I’m seeing a more spiritual connection in the songs Bob Marley wrote and performed. His devotion to the Rastafarian faith most certainly framed his life and work. Rasta is a very Judo Christian based religion and his adoption of it makes a lot of sense. Its conceptualization around Halie Selassie I of Ethiopia would be natural after the blacks of the West were enslaved by the white kings of Europe. In light of looking at the “Other” nature of Gods Love it is almost as if Rasta was seeing Christianity from a more pure point of view. I’m sure I’m being naive in this evaluation as that movement certainly had polarized black power roots. A close friend of mine who is also a writer and performer wrote a song about a ‘black king”, (Come Again). I enjoyed the song a lot and told him so. But then I mentioned that in my opinion we didn’t need a black king, Or a white one for that matter. It’s still a good song. It seems to me that Bobs work really took the black power foundation of Rasta and turned it on its head into a One Love foundation. I would compare that reframing from polarization to One Love to what Jesus tried to do with the Jewish and Roman world of his time.
I enjoy Bobs work as an art form and also his philosophical focus. I have yet to really look at all his songs but just a couple have jumped out at me as I’ve listened and downloaded the lyrics. In “One Love” his first verse speaks of listening to the “children crying” which in my opinion is what Jesus asks us to do when He says we must all become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Children are the innocents of the world and must be taught to hate, fear, and fight by their “elders”. Not! Later in that song he speaks of ending this “holy Armageddon” (a very succinct and total repudiation of “Religious War”) and there will be no hiding from the “Father of Creation”. We need to honor the children and unfortunate of this world as Christ taught and we will be held accountable for our failure to do so. Not referring here to a hellfire and damnation accountability but of being taught in time through life’s lessons to be of One Love. Earlier in that song he asks the question “is there a place for the hopeless sinner who persecutes mankind and seeks only his own belief system (betterment)” He doesn’t aim to answer the question but his life and the growth of mankind seems to reinforce the idea of a totally loving and forgiving God. This element of the ‘emerging movement” is beneath the surface in most of these writers I’ve mentioned in this blog but it is at the very core of Rob Bell‘s “Love Wins”.
The other song’s lyrics which I’ll mention here are those of “Get Stand Up”. On the surface this one seems to be just focusing on standing up for your rights, social justice and basic human rights. Admirable focus of a song but Bob seems to take it a bit further in his spiritual framing. As does the emerging movement, among others, he is going against the somewhat commonly held view that religion is primarily an escape plan for the next life. We’re saying that Heaven, the kingdom of God, starts here and now with how we treat each other individually, sociality, nationally, globally. It includes all mankind, especially the innocent and the poor, and also all of creation. He comes down very much against the idea that “the great God is somewhere else or another time”. As I understand it he says very clearly that God is a “Living Man”, kind of a reframing of what St Theresa says in her prayer that “We are the hands and feet of Christ on this earth”. He also doesn’t seem to have a lot of regard for the “ism skism game” of the powers at odds in this world. He very much tried to be the peacemaker and avoided taking political ego driven sides in conflicts.
Here is a quote from Brian’s book attributed to the late Pope John Paul II. This was from a speech given in Syria four months before 9/11. “It is my ardent hope that Muslim and Christian religious leaders and teachers will present our two great religious communities as communities in Respectful (how very Rasta :0)) dialogue, never more as communities in conflict. It is crucial for the Young to be taught the ways of Respect and understanding, so that they will not be led to misuse religion itself to promote or justify hatred and violence. Violence destroys the image of the Creator in His creatures, and should never be considered as the fruit of religious conviction.” It’s too bad that these two figures couldn’t put on a peace rally in the Holy Land today.
Playing on the possible tag lines to the theoretical question “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed cross the Road” Brian answers a couple of different ways a) In the hope that we would follow and b) to get to the “Other”. Amen Brother! Let the children lead the way. Pax Christi! Roberto Vincente.
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