Product Description
This comprehensive library of creative liturgical material helps you design worship that transforms Sunday services from empty ritual into an individual, collective experience with the Holy. Julia Ross Strope takes worshipers on a journey to the sacred dimension with words and images that highlight the connection of our souls to God's heart. For every Sunday and other major occasion throughout the church year, this volume provides inclusive and affirming resources - calls to worship, a wide variety of prayers, hymn suggestions, and brief sermon ideas - all specifically based on the day's readings and using contemporary language that connects with the people in your pews. This innovative workbook is a rich source of thought-provoking material that can be used as written or easily adapted to fit your individual circumstances - you'll use it again and again to keep your worship services fresh, passionate, and stimulating. Strope divides the church year into seven "motions" of spiritual journey corresponding to the seasons: In Motion (Advent) - The calendar cycle begins again, and we are busy enjoying family and friends while anticipating the birth of God's Child. Commotion (Christmas) - When the incarnation is realized, commotion erupts; food and stories, gifts and memories are integral to the celebration. Locomotion (Epiphany) - As the commotion subsides, people integrate gifts into their closets and lifestyles as they move about and seek the Light of the World. No Motion (Lent) - After the flurry of activity of the preceding seasons, we look inward and reflect on what the Divine is challenging us to be and to do. Emotion (Easter) - The time of reflection erupts into new options as the reality of the resurrection transforms life in nature and the human soul. Promotion (early Pentecost) - The period of activity and inner empowerment is projected to the outer world, with a passion to promote justice and tell others about God. Slow Motion (late Pentecost) - Like an agricultural cycle, rest takes over as passion turns into the wisdom gleaned from experience ... and the cycle ends so that a new generative period can begin. Julia Ross Strope serves on the ministry staff of Church of the Covenant (Presbyterian) in Greensboro, North Carolina. She previously served Abington Presbyterian Church in Abington, Pennsylvania, St. John's Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina, and Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In addition to her pastoral work, Strope is an educator and counselor. She is a graduate of Houghton College (B.A.), Duke University Divinity School (M.Div.), and Union Theological Seminary at Richmond (D.Min.), where her doctoral thesis (Sacrotherapy: Healing Through the Visual and Tactual Arts) explored using the arts as ways to experience and articulate adventure with the Holy. Leandra Merea Strope, who provided the hymn suggestions and drew the Celtic knot, is the minister of music at Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has earned degrees in Flute Performance from Meredith College (B.M.), in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music (M.M.), and has done doctoral work in Choral Conducting and Literature at Indiana University. She has directed ensembles at Meredith, Yale, and IU as well as at numerous churches, and for five years she directed the choral program at Abington Friends School in Abington, Pennsylvania. Leandra also served as the lead teacher of choral music at the Governor's School of North Carolina in Winston-Salem from 1996 until 2005. Melanie Bassett, who contributed the hand drawings on the section heading pages, is an artist and art teacher who lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina."
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