Moving to a Narrative Lectionary and Other Experiments in Worship!

Interactive Worship Art

It’s been awhile since I’ve written on this blog, having fallen off the daily reflection horse, it’s hard to get back on! But I am excited about a new phase of life we’re entering into at Friendship Presbyterian Church where I am the pastor and I’m going to use this blog to share our experience.

This fall we started what we’re referring to as a Season of Experimentation (again)… I say again because this community is no stranger to experimenting. In their short history they’ve merged and moved and lived deeply into their missional identity. We currently worship in the Norwood Park Train Station on the Northwest Side of Chicago. It’s a great space but limited in size and so this fall we are embarking on a Worship Experiment!

Here are the components of our experiment:

  • Moving from one service to two at 9am and 11am.
  • Incorporating and experimenting with a variety of worship styles, visual and theatrical arts, music and liturgy.
  • Moving from the RCL to the Narrative Lectionary offered by Luther Seminary on workingpreacher.org.
  • Over the course of this experiment our theme is: I AM and we are drawing on two questions offered by Diana Butler Bass in her book, Christianity After Religion. Who am I in God? & Who is God in me?

 

This is a three month experiment from Sept. 8 – Nov. 24th. For the first few weeks we are duplicating the service from 9 at 11 but in the next couple weeks the services will diverge… I think.

I will be posting thoughts on worship, liturgy and sermons from the series here. If you’d like to learn more about our community or this experiment check out my article about it on our website here.

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