Helpful links for Kids

Hey Guys, I think this lady’s blog has some fantastic ideas – check out the domestic church area… think we could do some of these with the kids at appropriate seasons?

ThreeSidedWheel

Samhain Ritual 2011

This year’s ritual is different to last year, mostly because it was also drawing in the elements of the scapegoat study that we’ve been doing. I’ve put it below, if anyone wants to borrow ideas – most of it already comes from other sources (which I’ve tried to put in brackets after each relevant section) -hope the formatting transfers easily!

Samhain “Small Ritual”

Samhain
The beginning of the year in the Celtic Traditions
The beginning of winter, after the harvest has been gathered in, a time of waiting
A time to celebrate with a community around a fire
A time to hope that the stores last the winter, that spring returns in time
A moment of remembrance for loved ones departed and for spiritual awareness
A moment to pause and reflect and celebrate
The Turn of the Year

All: The Love of your creator be with you
Reader: God’s blessing be yours,
And well may it befall you;
Christ’s blessing be yours
And well be you entreated;
Spirit’s blessing be yours,
And well spend you your lives,
Each day that you rise up,
Each night that you lie down. (from Carmina Gadaelica)
All: We have been loved by God from before the beginning (Julian of Norwich)
Reader: We are not alone
We live in God’s world; (Iona Community Worship)
All: And so everything has being because of God’s love. (Julian of Norwich)

* A time for goodbyes & for remembering*
(may light candles; Playing:Mumford & Sons – Timshel)

The Night Stair by Alison Swifen ( A meditation on the Yew Tree)
A silence like no other
Is ne’r day in the
morning. The world is
sleeping off the ill
effects of the
old year and
it is too soon to
speak any
story into the new.

Quiet as thick
flakes of snow. Quiet
as the rising and falling
of a child’s sleep. Quiet
as the sleep of
the dead,
under the yew.

Quiet
as the abbey church at
candlefall when
Amens are said,
and on the air,
before the latch drops,
behind the night stair,
the last echo of God
breathing in our
prayer.

In the themes of both remembrance and our recent one of looking at the ideas of the scapegoat, we read all of Hebrews chapter 9.

(listen – Hildegard of Bingen – Spiritus Sanctus vivificans vita
Enya- Athair Ar Neamh
Sufjan Stevens- The Lord God Bird)

Lectio Divina: 1 John v 5-9
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

 
Confession & Reconciliation

*We pause in silence to recall and remember thoughts, words, and deeds which we would rather leave dead & buried in the old year.
In silence we bring these to God in our hearts.*

All: We confess to God and in the company of all God’s people that our lives and the life of the world are broken by our sin.

Reader: When the world could wait no longer,
All: The carpenters took up their tools,
They made a cross for God’s own Son,
Fashioned from wood and skill of human hands
Fashioned from hate and will of human minds
Reader: He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
All: For Us He Grieved.
Reader: He was summoned to the judgement hall,
An enemy of the state, a danger to religion,
All: By Us He Was Judged.
Reader: He was lashed and scourged with cruel whips
All: By his stripes we are healed.
Reader: He was nailed to the cross by human hands,
All: Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.
Reader: He died, declaring God’s forgiveness.
He rose on the third day, transforming death.
He ascended into heaven, that he might be everywhere on earth.
He sent the Holy Spirit as the seal of his intention.
He sets before us bread and wine, and invites us to his table.
This is the place where we are made well again.
All: And All will be made well.
Reader: For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world,
All: But that the world, through him, might be saved.
(Iona Community Worship)

*We share communion together*

(can use the following as pass the bread and wine/juice to one another)

The Body of Christ, broken for you.
The Blood of Christ, shed for you.

Reader: Rejoice therefore, O my soul, for God wills thy reconciling;
Seize hold upon his outstretched hand to tell thee of reconciling love.
All: God help me and encompass me,
From this hour till the hour of my death.
(Carmina Gadaelica)
 
Reader: We are not alone.
We live in God’s world.
All: We believe in God,
Who has created and is creating
Who has come in Jesus to reconcile
And make all things new.
Reader: We trust God,
All: who calls us to be the church;
To love and serve others,
To seek justice and resist evil,
To proclaim Jesus,
Crucified, dead and risen;
Our Judge and our hope.
Reader: In life, in death, in life beyond death,
All: God is with us: we are not alone.
Thanks be to God.

Reader: Therefore, with the whole realm of nature around us,
With earth, sea and sky,
We sing to you.
All: With all the angels of light who envelop us,
With all the saints before and beside us,
With brothers and sisters, east and west,
We sing to you.
Reader: And with our loved ones,
Separate from us now,
Who yet, in this mystery, are close to us,
We join in the song of your unending greatnes.
All: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.
Reader: Kindness in our face
And the Spirit’s grace
Wisdom in our speech
As we speak to each;
O Lord Christ, thou art
Love within the heart;
In love may we greet
Though a foe we meet.
(Carmina Gadaelica)

All: May the God of all people and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Give us grace and peace this night and every night.

Aug 1 – Calan Awst, Lammas, Lughnasadh, First Fruits

Thought I would like to share this meditation on the turn of the year today, based it around being able to follow links on the internet to get to various stages, so it fits better with the blog format, I think.

Bread is on the table – Celebrating Lammas (folkonthefarm)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DadOPO46wd0

A church intro to Lammas day celebration (Sharing the Abundance of God’s Blessings)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KV1O725s78

Exodus 23v16
Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.
Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.

Carmina Gadaelica (Vol 1, Reaping Blessings, 89 & 90)
GOD, bless Thou Thyself my reaping,
Each ridge, and plain, and field,
Each sickle curved, shapely, hard,
Each ear and handful in the sheaf,
Each ear and handful in the sheaf.
Encompass each goat, sheep and lamb,
Each cow and horse, and store,
Surround Thou the Rocks and herds,
And tend them to a kindly fold,
Tend them to a kindly fold.
Bless each maiden and youth,
Each woman and tender youngling,
Safeguard them beneath Thy shield of strength,
And guard them in the house of the saints,
Guard them in the house of the saints.

ON Tuesday of the feast at the rise of the sun,
And the back of the ear of corn to the east,
I will go forth with my sickle under my arm,
And I will reap the cut the first act.
I will let my sickle down
While the fruitful ear is in my grasp,
I will raise mine eye upwards,
I will turn me on my heel quickly,
Rightway as travels the sun
From the airt of the east to the west,
From the airt of the north with motion calm
To the very core of the airt of the south.
I will give thanks to the King of grace
For the growing crops of the ground,
He will give food to ourselves and to the flocks
According as He disposeth to us.
James and John, Peter and Paul,
Mary beloved, the fullness of light,
* * * * *
* * * * *
On Michaelmas Eve and Christmas,
We will all taste of the bannock.

Proverbs 3v9
Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops.

James 3v17-18
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Be Thou My Vision – video re: orphans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wIulK3eeTw

News – Famine in East Africa  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14357126
Video re: World Hunger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMZ4nihvEng
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Sufjan Stevens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1bSlS6OWTs

Oxfam: https://donate.oxfam.org.uk/eastafrica?intcmp=hp_hero_ea-noimg_260711
Sufjan Stevens – For all the widows in paradise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59BRCOiQVKI
Bob Dylan – The times they are a changin’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_oJPnSaPlQ

Romans 8
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your… Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed… We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Refuge (from In the Master’s Light: http://www.inthemasterslight.net/resources/seasonal-celebrations/11-seasonal-worship.html )
With all my heart I take refuge
In God Most High,
Who created all things,
The merciful Father, source of all goodness.
With all my heart I take refuge
In Christ, the Redeemer from sin,
Who restores my true nature,
The perfect and mysterious Word.
With all my heart I take refuge
In the One who embraces the universe,
Who at all times and in all places
Responds to our needs,
The pure and tranquil Holy Spirit.

Blessed Be Your Name (by Matt Redman, cover video Daniel Choo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpyluB4Utk8

1Corinthians 15
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…

Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man…
But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him…

The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

I Can Only Imagine – Mercy Me (acoustic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIIeCUiDmS8

Matthew 9v35-38
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Caedmon’s Call -40Acres
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lioq4abjc0&feature=related

Lughnasadh Blessings (http://www.faithandworship.com/Lughnasadh_praying_though_the_Celtic_year.htm )
We bless you,
God of Seed and Harvest
And we bless each other
That the beauty of this world
And the love that created it
Might be expressed though our lives
And be a blessing to others
Now and always
Amen.