Ritual, Healing, Community Celebrations
Another important component of worship leadership is planning and presenting rituals to mark community events both within and outside of Sunday morning corporate worship, rituals such as the turning of the seasons and memorials of departed ones. Rituals are also important for the dedications of physical spaces on our church campuses, and to provide communal and personal opportunities for healing. Many of these rituals occur outside the usual Sunday morning schedule, many within the wider community .
Within the annual plan for Sunday morning corporate worship, I strive to include services which mark the turning of the seasons as well as religious rites from the wide range of our heritage. For example:
- Bread Communion to Celebrate Thanksgiving: UU Reston: November. 24, 2013
- Day of the Dead: UU Reston: October. 26, 2014
- Solstice Service: UU Reston: December 21, 2014
- Flower Communion to Celebrate Easter: UU Reston: March 27, 2016
- Bread Communion to Celebrate Thanksgiving: UU Reston: November. 24, 2013
- Day of the Dead: UU Reston: October. 26, 2014
- Solstice Service: UU Reston: December 21, 2014
- Flower Communion to Celebrate Easter: UU Reston: March 27, 2016
For my own ordination, I created a service both particular in that it recognized my rite of passage in ministry, and celebratory for the congregation as a whole as the service included congregants from over ten UU congregations in central Texas who came together to create a community choir.
Service of Ordination: March 5, 2005
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Services and rituals of healing can occur in both intimate and public settings. Some of the most moving healing services I have been part of have been interfaith community services, such as an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service for Peace in Reston, or the Community Services for Healing when I served as Chaplain of Planned Parenthood of the Capitol Region of central Texas.
Planned Parenthood Service of Healing: October 21, 2004
Pastoral Letter
Another activity I developed during an interim ministry was small group healing circles. These events were unstructured and thus with no printed orders of service: perhaps the most important experience in these was the interpersonal connections as folks supported one another through their different and yet common processes of healing.
Services and rituals of healing can occur in both intimate and public settings. Some of the most moving healing services I have been part of have been interfaith community services, such as an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service for Peace in Reston, or the Community Services for Healing when I served as Chaplain of Planned Parenthood of the Capitol Region of central Texas.
Planned Parenthood Service of Healing: October 21, 2004
Pastoral Letter
Another activity I developed during an interim ministry was small group healing circles. These events were unstructured and thus with no printed orders of service: perhaps the most important experience in these was the interpersonal connections as folks supported one another through their different and yet common processes of healing.
Creating rituals to dedicate special places in our buildings and grounds, and for special objects within our buildings, contributes to the honoring of those spaces and objects as sacred. Among such Dedications of "Place" during my ministry, I have helped congregants to say goodbye to a beloved labyrinth on a plot of church property which was sold for re-development, and to celebrate the expansion of the deck in a Memorial Garden, which then became the site for ceremonies for the deposition of ashes of departed loved ones.