Our inclusive language liturgies generally set the structure and theme of Sunday morning worship. Since announcements are an integral part of our life together, we offer some guidelines for those who make announcements towards the end of worship.
After Pentecost 2013 Bearing Witness, Bearing Burdens
REFLECTION
The contents of my life are meant to be constantly given and shared in a generous gesture of compassion, just as the main purpose of a cup is to have its contents given away.
Joyce Rupp, The Cup of our Lives
Pentecost 2013
REFLECTION
We are the vessels of God’s voice, her words blowing through us, bidding us to tell the tales that only we can speak.
Jan L. Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path
Easter 2013 The River of Life-Giving Water
REFLECTION
The angel then showed me the river of life-giving water, clear as crystal, which issued from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and flowed down the middle of the streets. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit in every season; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
(Revelation 22:1-2)
Lent 2013 All Who Thirst
REFLECTION
When Jesus cries, “I am thirsty,” he binds himself to the hurting of every generation and the sufferers of every century. The cry of thirst is the first sound of a newborn baby and the first plea of every mother after childbirth. Cries for water resound on every battlefield when the butchery is over. A moistened cloth to the lips is the last ministry we can offer a dying loved one. To thirst is to be one of us, and in the very human life of Jesus, the God of all the universe knew thirst.
Peter Storey, Listening at Golgotha, pp. 63-64
Epiphany 2013 Taking the Word Into the World
REFLECTION
I am your message, Lord. Throw me like a blazing torch into the night, that all may see and understand what it means to be a disciple.
St. Maria Skobtsova
Orthodox nun and martyr (1891-1945)