Saturday, 4 of February of 2012

Messy Church Fiesta in Thornhill

Messy Church aims to create the opportunity for adults and children to enjoy expressing their creativity, to gather together for a meal, to experience worship and to have fun within a church context.

YOU ARE INVITED to a MESSY CHURCH FIESTA

February 18

10 am – 3 pm

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lutheran Church, Thornhill

with The Rev. Nancy Rowe (MC Practitioner)

and  Sue Kalbfleisch (MC Regional Coordinator)

There will be an opportunity to experience what Messy Church can offer your church. You will take away knowledge, skills and materials to help you get started.  For participants who have already started a Messy Church, there will be opportunity to share ideas and network, facilitated by a seasoned MC practitioner.

To find out more about Messy Church, visit the website where it all started 
at www.messychurch.org.uk . For questions, contact Sue Kalbfleisch (MC) at 905.648-0302 or  freshexpressions@niagara.anglican.ca .

For registration form and details, see Invitation to Messy Fiesta Churches . If you have questions concerning the registration, please contact the secretary, Diana Habekost, at Christ the King at 905-889-0873 or office@lutheran-church-thornhill.org.

The cost (includes lunch, crafts and a fun day) is $25/person – bring 3 or more from your church and pay only $15/person.

Christ the King — Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lutheran Church

149 Bay Thorn Drive, Thornhill, Ont.

Phone: (905) 889-0873


Leave a comment

Worship: live webstream

Christ the King Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lutheran Church in Thornhill invites you to listen to their German and English services through live webstreaming.  For more details, http://www.lutheran-church-thornhill.org/services.html .

Herzliche Einladung zum Gottesdienst!


Leave a comment

Epiphany through Transfiguration web resources

Pastor Sara Faulhafer offers Epiphany web resources to aid with worship planning. Thanks Sara!

Epiphany through Transfiguration_ Worship Web Resources


Leave a comment

In this moon of wintertime

Consider how your congregation walks with the indigenous peoples in our land — preaching? prayers? offering? advocacy?  I wrote the song “In this moon of wintertime” out of the juxtaposition of the news of Attawapiskat and rehearsing the carol “Twas in the moon of wintertime.”  In this song, the singing of “Gloria” is not only an affirmation of the way of Love, it is a practice that imagines the fullness of God’s time where healing and wholeness have already occurred.  This song became part of our Inshallah Christmas Carol sing.  I offer it to you as a way to stir us all to pray and to live more consciously in a healthy relationship with indigenous peoples of this land.

In this moon of wintertime

In this moon of wintertime when chaos reigns supreme,

Economies and policies suppressing holy dreams

Of peace on earth, good will to all,

O God of promise, hear our call:

“Gloria”  (2x)

The peoples of this land called home are hurting in the North

For food and shelter, let alone the chance to bring forth

Their ways of making peace on earth,

With them we wait for Jesus’ birth:

“Gloria” (2x)

For Jesus’ birth in flesh and blood brings hope and joy and peace.

We long to bring the wholeness that this birth, in fact, completes.

O God of now-and-not-yet time,

Stir us to act and be a sign of

“Gloria” (4x)

Go to www.kairoscanada.org for information on political action and emergency relief for Indigenous peoples in Canada.

debbie lou ludolph, December 13, 2011


Leave a comment

visual theology blog

Pastor Sara Faulhafer writes, “Words often fail us whether we are trying to imagine God, struggling with the big questions of pain and suffering, or seeking words to express gratitude. Photographer Dave Perry invites us to reflect theologically with his original images and brief meditations. Surprising and stimulating, his pictures evoke a myriad of questions and emotions.”  Check it out:  visual theology blog .


Leave a comment

A call for liturgical texts

From the worship desk of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

“IN THESE OR SIMILAR WORDS”

As you may recall, the mandate of the Renewing Worship project was not only about producing a book or electronic resources for worship, although that was a significant and tangible part of it. The primary call was for ongoing renewal of worship in our church. The task is not over. In fact, in many ways, it is just beginning.

The rubrics in Evangelical Lutheran Worship are very fluid, allowing and encouraging a great amount of flexibility and freedom within a shared, historic framework, for a particular context. Phrases like “in these or similar words” and “another appropriate hymn or canticle” appear quite regularly. But what makes an alternate text “similar” or what makes a substitute canticle “appropriate”? Simply replacing texts or songs that appear within the services in ELW with anything different is not the intent. Rather, it is hoped that worship planners and leaders, if they are enacting these fluid rubrics, will make decisions and create texts with great care for theological content and liturgical use. That is not easy. In fact it is a big challenge!

If you have liturgical texts and prayers that are carefully-crafted examples of enacting the “in these or similar words” rubrics, we would love to see them. They may prove helpful in creating resources for worship planners. Please send any texts or other ideas and comments to worship@elca.org.


Leave a comment

Prayer for climate justice

In the midst of meetings in Durban, Mardi Tindal, Moderator of The United Church of Canada,  has written this prayer for climate justice to be used in congregational worship.

Living and loving Christ,
You gave of yourself so that life might prevail.
We are grateful that your mind and heart lie
deep within the Earth.
And that you know the whole Earth to be holy,
all creatures to be kin.

We hear Earth’s cries, voice and song.
As we listen and see, awaken us.

Come among us, as you came among your frightened disciples.
Bless us, so that our unexamined thoughts and assumptions
are challenged and move us all to work for climate justice
in the way of your love.

Bless governmental leaders everywhere,
and put courage in their hearts to do the right things.

Inspire us all with a sense of our responsibilities,
leading us ever more boldly into what and who we are,
who you and Earth truly are.

All my relations. Amen.

You can find a video recording here:
http://www.united-church.ca/communications/news/moderator/111201


Leave a comment

Prayer Petition: Advent Two, People of Attawapiskat

A prayer petition for First Nations, especially people of Attawapiskat

Call the peoples of Canada into a living relationship with one another, O God

– a  relationship marked by an earnest desire to repent for and forgive past wrongs;

a covenant relationship that will prepare in the desert of prejudice and resentment

a righteous highway of mutuality, trust, respect, and goodwill.

Give us the will and the grace to make the rough places plain

as we journey together in solving the many problems that trouble our First Nations.

We remember especially today the suffering of the people of Attawapiskat.

Hear us, O God.

[C]    Your mercy is great.

Prayer petition crafted by Pastor James F. Brown, Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Waterloo.


Leave a comment

Advent 2B Hymn

F. Richard Garland has written Gather Your People To Comfort And Love as an Advent hymn text closely related to the lectionary readings for Year B and set to the  familiar  Irish tune  SHANE (Be Thou my Vision).  http://bit.ly/rnqMe0

F. Richard Garland’s photo, biography, contact information and links to additional songs and choral music are available on the Global Board of Discipleship (United Methodists) website.   F. Richard Garland


Leave a comment

Synod Prayer Rota 2011 – 2012

Prepared by Rev Don Nevile, Prayers of the People 2011- 2012 offers weekly suggestions for intercessions that include the churches and ministries of the Eastern Synod. For more details and the weekly calendar, click  PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE 2011-2012 . This rota resource will be regularly stored under Resources on the Worship Page, where you will also find the lectionary readings for Year B and an Anglican Lutheran Prayer Cycle.


Leave a comment