Easter Sunrise Worship/Egg Hunt!

I hope I’m not the only one behind this year! I thought having finalized my plan for our an outdoor, socially distanced, no-singing, no-sermon(!) Easter Sunrise service others might still need some inspiration for a similar type service. All of my past sunrise services have included singing so without that option this year I wanted to still do something special. It involves a little prep work but nothing too hard! I decided, why not have an egg hunt even for the grown up! So you’ll need at least 8 plastic eggs, some candy if you choose, a printer, and scissors. In the worship plan you’ll see the first two pages are the very informal outline/script. The second two pages have the rest of the Luke 24 split into small readings and number. That’s what you’ll print and cut and put in the eggs along with candy if you choose. I also did some eggs with just candy. So after reading the first part of Luke’s Easter story I’ll instruct everyone to pick up and egg (or 2 depending on how many people come) and then anyone who has a paper in their egg will continue reading the Easter story in order. I’m hoping it will add some fun, interactive-ness so we don’t even notice there’s no singing!

Here’s the worship service and readings to download:

I hope this helps with your last minute preparations! Have a wonderful Easter and a blessed Sabbath rest thereafter!

C2W for Easter Sunday Cross Fit Faith

Here’s a Call to Worship for Easter Sunday based on Luke 24:1-12, 36-48, “A Way of Life” in the Cross Fit Faith worship series.

The Call
Christ is risen!
   Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Hear the bells ring out the Good News
(listen as the bell rings)
We are an Easter people,
   Alleluia is our song!
Our lives too ring out the Good News
   by our words and thoughts and actions.
We come today, despite the many other places we could be
   to celebrate our God of Life and embrace the new life only Christ can give!

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Cross Fit Faith for Lent

Cross Fit Faith (1)

Health and fitness has become its own culture and much like the Church, these programs seek to help people tackle the challenges of personal growth and improvement. Any good plan will tell you it’s not a quick fix, it’s not a diet, but learning a new way of life that often means unlearning old habits and beliefs.
Lent is the perfect time to train in our faith. This series approaches the journey of spiritual growth like a health and fitness plan for the soul. Using the theme of ‘taking up our cross daily’ and following Jesus, we’ll be exploring daily practices for spiritual growth while balancing Christ’s call to bear our crosses with his promise that his ‘yoke is easy’ and his ‘burden is light’.
Download the entire 7-week worship plan here: Cross Fit Faith Lenten Worship Plan

To compliment this worship series, all of our Bible study groups will be reading Juan Huertas’ daily devotional, The Sanctuary for Lent 2019.
We’ll also be using SALT Project’s Family-Friendly Lenten Devotional, Breaking the Chains during our Family Faith Nights.

I will continue to post liturgies, prayers, Calls to Worship, and more related to this theme. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the resourcey goodness!

Happy Planning!

Easter Call to Worship

Here is the Call to Worship we’ll be using for Easter to cap off our Real Life Faith series. This was written by Thom M. Shuman.

The Call
by Thom M. Shuman

This is the day:
   when tears are wiped away;
   shattered hearts are mended;
   fears are replaced with joy.
This is the day the Lord:
   rolls away the stone of fear;
   throws off death’s clothes;
   goes ahead of us into God’s future.
This is the day the Lord has made:
   death has no fear for us;
   sin has lost its power over us;
   God opens the tombs of our hearts to fill us with life.
This is the day – Easter Day!
   Christ is Risen! Hallelujah!

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Call to Worship for Passionate Worship

I’m currently preaching a series on Robert Schnase’s book, Five Practices of Fruitful CongregationsThis week we’re looking at passionate worship and I’m using the scripture Acts 2:42-47 as our scriptural focus but this also references Jesus’ words from John 4.

The Call
God we come to worship you
   in Spirit and Truth!
We come to empty ourselves for you.
   Receive our praise and worship, our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears.
We give all ourselves to you in worship
   so that you will fill us up with your Spirit
and send us out into your world again to continue the work of your kingdom!
   Praise God! Praise God! Praise God!

Prayer for Illumination for Five Practices series

Here is the prayer for illumination we’ll be using for the series we’re doing based on Robert Schnase’s book The Five Practices of Fruitful CongregationsIt references John 15:1-8 which is the theme scripture I’m using for this series.

Prayer for Illumination
God of love, plant us in the soil of your grace. Nurture us in the Truth of your Word, the vine of everlasting life. Enlighten us with the wisdom of your Spirit, which flows through us today and all days. Abiding in Christ we pray. AMEN

Sermon Series on 5 Practice of Fruitful Congregations

This year the leadership team at our church read Robert Schnase’s book The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations and we wanted to share the great information and inspiration he provides with the rest of the congregation. I decided to use the season of Easter to preach a series on this book. Focusing on these five practices will help us prepare for the big event we had planned on Pentecost. Pentecost is traditionally known as the birthday of The Church so we thought, let’s throw a big birthday party for The Church and use Pentecost as our ‘bring a friend to church’ Sunday!

You can download my worship plan for the series here: Five Practices Worship Plan
I will be posting the prayers and Call to Worships we use in the weeks ahead.

Happy Planning!

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This is the image I designed to be the bulletin cover image for this series.

Easter Sunrise Worship

 

 

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Need a Sunrise worship service? Look no further! This is a short, simple, and fun Easter sunrise worship service. Music can be done with guitar, piano, or a cappella. I have loved sharing Cynthia Rylant’s poem every year but the best part is ending the service with a rousing rendition of Joy to the World! (Trust me, it works. And it’s awesome!)

Download the bulletin PDF here: Easter Sunrise Worship (print doubled sided and cut in half)

Click here for the poem God Dies by Cynthia Rylant.

Blessing for a joyful Resurrection Day!