Preparing to Celebrate

Advent is a time of preparation. Like Lent before Easter, Advent is a time to get ready for the joyous celebration of Christmas. Christmas is much more than the sights, sounds and conspicuous consumption that have come to characterize the “Holiday Season.” Christmas is not that “Holiday Season.” Christmas is a celebration of God coming near in the form of a human infant. It is the soul of a sacred season in which incarnation of the holy is both remembered and experienced again as a living reality. It is a time for taking stock of our own lives; it is a time to consider what it would be to have Christ born in us once again.

In the best of all possible worlds, babies don’t come as a complete surprise. The birth is eagerly anticipated and the preceding days are filled with preparation for the coming child. Advent is that time of preparation for the birth of Christ. The ancient story says that the baby Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger. Even if Joseph had tried to phone ahead for reservations, the accommodations in first century Bethlehem would have been minimal and healthcare virtually nonexistent. The preparation for the birth of Jesus was apparently adequate, but clearly improvised. Now, all these centuries later, we need not improvise. The liturgical calendar allows us enough time to get ready for the birth as it comes around each year. We have time to prepare for the coming of Christ in this new church year.

In her beautiful Advent hymn, “People Look East,” Eleanor Farjeon encourages us to “Make your house fair as you are able, Trim the hearth and set the table. People, look east and sing today: Love, the guest, is on the way.” It is such a
magnificent way to describe what is about to happen, “Love the guest is on the way.” The King of Love is coming, is coming to your house, to your heart. What must you do to prepare?

Every year, the Spiridons host a lovely open house during this season for the whole congregation (as did Soo Kim and Doug Lee not long ago.) Putting on a party like that takes time and energy before the guests arrive. Preparations are
critical for the party to be a success.

For many years my former partner and I hosted a holiday open house for 150 people on a Sunday before Christmas. It was a joyous occasion. We loved having our home filled with family, friends and colleagues. But it took a lot to plan and prepare for the party. He would start early in December decorating the house from top to bottom, front to back, side to side. Over time I developed a menu of favorites that kept me busy in the kitchen. When the doorbell rang on the given Sunday afternoon the feast was on, but the whole thing would have been a disaster without preparation. The full affect, the desired outcome, the shared community, came into being because we spent a lot of time and energy preparing.

I know Advent preparation is not quite the same thing, but I also believe the parallel is there. The party was about joy and love – love for the people in our lives and the joy of sharing our home with them. Christmas is also about love
and joy, but a deeper love and grander joy than a good party. If we put that amount of our resource into planning a party, what would be needed to prepare for the Christ, the King of Love, the Savior of the World?

I know love and joy can be spontaneous, but in the seasons of the church year, the love and joy of Christmas call for preparation. I am very excited about Advent at FBCPA this year. Led by our intern, Naomi, we have been preparing
for this season for some time. Naomi, who interned this summer with Marcia McFee in her Worship Design Studio, brought creativity and grace to this process. We had a wonderful Advent to Epiphany Worship Brainstorming Party,
involving 20 members of the congregation preparing for our Advent/Christmas/Epiphany celebration. The theme for this season is drawn from the prophet Isaiah (2:3), “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God….” There we will engage in building that house of God as a place where Christ might come and dwell with us, bringing peace and goodwill to all creation.

Starting Saturday, November 30 at 9:00 AM we will begin to build our house and make it ready by “Hanging the Greens” (decorating the sanctuary.) Then on Sunday, December 1, we will share the first of four worship services that
will help us to make our hearts ready as well. Preparations are in order; love the guest is on the way.

Pastor Rick

Worship in the Works- Advent Brainstorming

Many thanks to all who came to the Advent‐Epiphany Brainstorming Party on Sunday, October 27th, after worship. It was a deeply productive session resulting in many great ideas for planning worship this Advent and Christmas season. With twenty‐one such creative and thoughtful folks in the room, it couldn’t have been otherwise!

We began the workshop by exploring how planning worship together is also a way of reflecting on, and lovingly holding, the Christian community we already are and that we hope to become. Picking up the Advent scripture theme of ʺBuilding the House of Godʺ from Isaiah, we talked about how bringing our ideas and gifts to designing worship together is one of many ways we can build our House of God this year. Indeed, already your ideas, creativity, time, energy, and commitment are the bricks and mortar for a potentially very exciting Advent worship season.

We remembered the world in which we live through Douglas Ha sharing his experience and memorable conversion of their family in the refuge camp in Vietnam where missionaries learned their language and lived as they did… Many thanks to Naomi as she enthusiastically led us through brainstorming of how to enrich the worship service to be more meaningful through various media as we enter Advent and Christmas. — Jin and Jane Chin

An unexpected computer virus interrupted my hope of introducing Marcia McFeeʹs ʺWorship Design Studioʺ online platform as a possible tool for helping to organize a worship team. However, if anyone has questions about it, or would like to learn more, please feel free to let your pastoral team know. Some churches find it helpful because it allows worship teams to do creative work without having to attend yet another meeting, but each church finds what works best for them and their particular needs.

We broke into four small groups to brainstorm ideas for each of the Sundays in Advent, and then came together at the end to share our thoughts. Some of the ideas that got us most excited included finding ways of integrating the youth more fully into worship, and incorporating multi‐sensory activities to enrich our Advent and Christmas Eve services. Folks came up with many specific ideas on how to do this that we will incorporate. More details to follow! In the meantime, if any of you have poems, readings, music, visual art, or other ideas youʹd like to contribute to our worship planning for Advent/Christmas, please pass them along to Rick, Tripp, Doug or me and weʹll add them to the creative pot weʹre stirring. Thanks again for all your support and input! It sure was fun, and we look forward to doing it again.

In peace and passion,
Naomi Schultz, Intern

Naomi arranging flowers

AWAB and Worship Planning

I had a wonderful trip to the East Coast to participate in the 20^th anniversary celebration of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists – “Coming of Age: A Living Jubilee.”  The weather was beautiful.  We met in two historic churches – First Unitarian in Providence and the First Baptist Church in America.  The program was well-received and meaningful. It was good to see old friends and colleagues and to meet new ones.  The work of full inclusion of lgbtqiq folk in Baptist circles has come far in the past 40 years (beginning with American Baptists Concerned in 1973) but there is still much work to be done.  I hope you will join me in prayer and work for that day of when we will have learned to embrace of all God’s children in love.  If you would like to hear more about the event, I’d be glad to talk to you.  For those of you who expressed concern, this trip was vacation time for me.

This Sunday we will focus on the familiar parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  The crowd might have had some trouble with the Pharisee, but they would have despised the tax collector.  What is Jesus doing when he blesses the tax collector over the Pharisee?  What lesson is he trying to teach his first disciples and us about the way we see ourselves and others?   It’s so easy to see the speck in someone else’s eye.

We are in for a special treat after worship when Naomi will be leading us in an “Advent to Epiphany Worship Brainstorming Party.” Naomi has been interning with well-known worship design artist, Marcia McFee, and will be bringing some of that work to share with us.  This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to engage in planning worship and other events for the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany season that will be meaningful to us and we can claim as our own.  Please plan to be here at 10 AM for worship and Sunday School and then to stay for the workshop.  A light lunch will be provided.

May God’s new thing flourish within us and among us.
Pastor Rick

 

Worship in the Works – thoughts on Advent planning and Worship Teams

With Advent and Christmas fast approaching, Pastor Rick, Pastor Tripp, and interns Doug and I are working on an Advent planning retreat for Sunday, October 27, beginning with the Adult Spiritual Formation time after worship. Everyone will be invited to come party and plan for the holidays!! It’s gonna be fun!

And while we are thinking about Advent, I’d like to pick up the thread of work you’ve all been doing in exploring new ways of constructing and playing with worship. Last summer I had the wonderful opportunity of interning with Rev. Dr. Marcia McFee’s “Worship Design Studio.” Marcia is a Methodist pastor and consultant known internationally for her innovative interweaving of visual and verbal arts, drama, music, and digital media to create lush and deeply meaning worship. Whether a worship service is simple with just a few elements, or constructed with multiple complex elements, Marcia’s techniques add depth, grace and playfulness to the worship experience.

I’m easy to please when it comes to worship: give me some lovely ancient or modern prayers, the same with music, scripture and a good sermon, and I’m a happy clam. What I appreciate about the approaches of Brad Berglund and Marcia Mcfee, however, is that they give us more tools in our tool box to play with, like ways of integrating the visual arts, and of layering music with both prayer and action. Seasons like Advent and Lent especially lend themselves to trying on something different in worship for a few weeks, and just noticing where it leads us. Some things that we try we might keep, others we let go of because they didn’t move us.

I learned recently that the word “worship” comes from the old English words of “weorth,” which means ʺworth,ʺ and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or ʺquality.ʺ Inherent in both of these old words is a sense of something meaningful – something with worth and quality that shapes our lives and communities. Marcia McFee offers:

When you consider that worship is the portal into the life of your church for visitors and that most of the members of the congregation probably only connect to the church through that one hour of weekly worship, this means that worship has the most impact on the greatest percentage of people…. Meaningful and memorable worship can energize [our] work of discipleship and deepen [our] personal and corporate spiritual journeys. We are all ‘called to ministry’ through our initiation into the church and being even a small part of the work of worship in your community is an answer to that call!

A worship team can be one of the most vibrant and vital discipleship groups in the congregation. It includes bible‐study, theology, artistry, mission, commitment, spiritual direction along with a healthy dose of small group bonding! It can be multigenerational and include those who consider themselves ʺcreativeʺ as well as those who just want to help carry out the tasks needed to serve the church.

Part of my work with First Baptist Church this year will be to draw on all your creative talents when it comes to planning for the seasons of Advent and Lent, with the hope that it will be so fun and fulfilling that there will be energy and desire to continue, with the pastoral team, working on worship together and building a Worship Team.

Details for the Advent Worship Planning Party are in the works! Advent being my favorite time, I can’t wait…. And when it comes, may we all inspire each other to use ancient traditions in fresh ways to proclaim the Good News!

In peace and Passion,
Naomi