Thanks to Richard Hurst for noting that encoding rot made the “Ordo de Diservo” — Order of Worship — unreadable, even for those who do read Esperanto. Should be all fixed, here and at RevScottWells.com, where I write slighly more frequently.
Category: Worship
“A Fruitful Life”
It’s been a hard day, and seeking solace, turned to prayer. I pulled this book off my shelf because the title — Light and Peace — spoke to me. It’s a collection of prayers by Charles Hall Leonard, published by the Murray Press, a Universalist publisher, in 1915. Leonard (1822-1918) was an outsized figure in… Continue reading “A Fruitful Life”
Should Christian worship have non-biblical readings?
Having non-biblical readings has become such a canon among mainline Unitarian Universalists that Unitarian Universalist Christians face a crisis on the subject of readings. Is it proper to have non-biblical readings in worship? The question of authority isn’t clear-cut. My home library has several works of daily readings: selected sections meant to be read regularly… Continue reading Should Christian worship have non-biblical readings?
Bleg: how does the lectionary or church calendar work in once-a-month churches?
This is a blog-beg for preachers and ministers of any denomination who preach or have preached in churches that meet less than weekly, and who use a lectionary or observe a traditional church calendar. I appreciate your sharing this with anyone who has experience. In short, how do you make it work? Do you use… Continue reading Bleg: how does the lectionary or church calendar work in once-a-month churches?
The United Methodist “worship web”
A little lunchtime Googling led me to this page, which has a large selection of United Methodist worship resources. Welcome to the collection of resources from The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992) owned by The United Methodist Publishing House. These are offered on our website by written agreement between The United Methodist Publishing House… Continue reading The United Methodist “worship web”
Brooks on prayer
I’m moving through my copy of Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s 1874 Our New Departure: or, The Methods and Work of the Universalist Church of America — his manifesto for the Universalist church — to his chapter on prayer. It’s a goldmine of Universalist attitudes, so I’m lifting out quotations; this is the first of two parts.… Continue reading Brooks on prayer
The trouble with custom-crafted words
So, then, what might future worship look like? And what will it accomplish? Peacebang, that is, blogger, Unitarian Universalist minister and friend Victoria Weinstein asked, and I replied .@peacebang Whatever they are, they'll need to be participatory, sensory-rich and laity-driven. And not over-wrought. #futureworship — Scott Wells ن (@bitb) May 16, 2015 One concern I… Continue reading The trouble with custom-crafted words
So, why Sunday morning again?
For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to understand the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East: Christian churches that have an early history of divergence from the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic and Protestant churches in the West. The Coptic Christians I’ve recently written about are in this group. So… Continue reading So, why Sunday morning again?
More thoughts on the scalable service
A moment to think about the British Orthodox Church, a small culturally-British Coptic jurisdiction. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that it is very small, but is able to create new church missions, and that should draw our positive attention. Is it because it has a surplus of clergy? It doesn’t seem so. Or… Continue reading More thoughts on the scalable service
Prayer for the Coptic martrys
I’ve not blogged much this week — lots going on at work — but one news story keeps rolling in my mind: the beheading of twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians fishermen by ISIL militants in Libya. They were targeted because they were Christian, in the context of wider persecution of Copts. That puts them among the… Continue reading Prayer for the Coptic martrys