Palm Sunday 2013

When I was at college we were encouraged to be creative in our devotions and worship space. It's not always easy to find the time to be creative when you are in full time ministry so it's been a while since we've done anything a bit 'different' in worship. Palm Sunday seemed an ideal time to be reflective and carve out space for busy people to sit with a familiar story and listen to what God was saying.

As people walked in, they were handed a paper bag. In the bag was a picture of a donkey, paper framed with palm leaves, a picture of a coat and a small stone. We began the service by looking at Zechariah 9:9 We took out the picture of the donkey and thought about the image of Jesus riding a donkey and what image we would have today of someone important coming to our city. We then looked at the symbolism of peace associated with a donkey and what it meant for Jesus to be riding a symbol of peace, when people were looking for a strong leader to rescue them from the oppressive Roman government. We spent time thinking about Jesus bringing peace into places and situations where we hadn't seen an opportunity for peace to exist. We thought about our own lives, where we were worrying, where we felt troubled, where we didn't feel peace and we spent time praying for those things and asking Jesus to bring us peace.

We read Luke 19:28-40. We thought about the people joyfully praising God in the street. We remembered Moses and Miriam leading worship to God after the Israelites fled Israel. God had saved his people before and God could save his people again. We spent time reflecting how we praise God for the things he has done for us. We pondered questions: "How comfortable are you to praise God in public", "When was the last time you spent time with God giving him praise for what he has done", "When was the last time you shared with a friend what God has done for you". We then took our paper that was framed in palm leaves out of our bags and wrote our praises on them and stuck them on the doors. The next thing we did was to take out the picture of the coat. I took some artistic license here and encouraged people to think about why people in the crowd would lay their coats on the ground for a donkey to trample over them. What would the path of coats look like when Jesus had moved on and the crowd had gone? We thought about the expectations of the crowd, maybe someone was hoping for healing, maybe someone else was hoping to stop paying taxes to Caesar, maybe someone was hoping to be able to do what Jesus could do? We thought about our own expectations of Jesus when we bring our prayer requests to him. We wrote a prayer request on our coats and put them back in the bag and brought them to God in silent prayer knowing that God answers prayer but maybe not in the way we expect.

We then brought out our stones. Jesus had told the Pharisees that if the disciples kept quiet, then the stones would cry out. (Luke 19:40) We noticed the Pharisees weren't crying out and wondered whether the Pharisees hearts were harder than stone. We felt hope that creation will always praise its creator. We acknowledge the sadness that will come later this week as we journey with Jesus to the cross but we remembered the hope that we have in Jesus, the risen Christ. We held our stones as we sang our final song and examined our own hearts for any hardness toward God. Afterwards it was good to hear people continue the reflectiveness and have conversations about the service and imagery. One group of people saw a lot of imagery in their stones which had cracks and dents. They felt these symbolically represented some of the things their hearts had been through over the years which they gave over to God. The stones were taken home which I hope will keep people reflecting through the week.

The praises we stuck to the doors were seen by our playgroup families during the week. A great way to share our faith with people in our community.

A way to take our Sunday service and look Beyond Sunday :-)

Children in Church

Last Sunday was Pentecost and to celebrate the birthday of The Church we had a party! The theme was red so many people came dressed in red. Our church was decorated (by the children during a song) in red streamers, balloons and paper plates. We had all the delights you would expect at a party; singing, birthday cake, games, presents, speeches, entertainment and lots of fun and laughter. This was one of our childrens services we have throughout the year. (You can see where the inspiration came from here)

It was interesting to see how the congregation responded to having a birthday party as a worship service. The balloons were a huge hit. We have several people from the Aged Care facility nearby join us on Sunday mornings and they had a ball hitting the balloons back and forth with the children. As part of the party games we made paper planes and wrote thank you prayers on them. People were then invited to the front to throw their planes together and see whose planes flew the furthest. Turns out we have quite a few people with a competitive spirit! We had thought it would encourage the pre-teen boys to get involved but people of all ages came to the front to fly their planes and show their plane making skills. Everyone was encouraged to fly their planes together and call out their thank you prayers together. As part of the party entertainment a Sundanese group sang and danced for us adding to the party atmosphere.

The service went over time, there were streamers and balloons and paper planes all over the church, and people did things they wouldn't normally do in a church service. It was one crazy, messy and exciting worship experience!!

It was with this experience still freshly in my mind that I read this article on "Why we don't allow children in our worship service"

I can't help but think how much this church misses out on not having all age worship, by not welcoming children and families to worship with others. I think of the older people in our congregation who got such a thrill by playing with balloons, I would think that's something they don't get many opportunities to do anymore. (I'm already thinking bubbles for our next all age service ;-)) I think of the opportunities the children had through the service to use their gifts and skills and to build confidence in them during the service. I think of adults who had the opportunity to hear the message of Pentecost in a fresh way. I think of the joy I saw on people's faces and the way people relaxed in the service in a way that was different from other Sundays.

In reply to the comments on his article, Bill LaMorey said "If I put in 20 hours of preparation for a message, I am not really excited about having everyone's attention on a crying baby instead of the teaching of God's word. You can call that hubris, but I call it common sense." I understand that a crying baby can be distracting, but how often does that happen? When my oldest child was a baby I was so embarrassed that while I was trying to pat my baby to sleep during the sermon the old ladies behind me were clucking over my baby in whispered tones. I spoke to the Minister afterwards and apologised for my baby being a distraction to the people behind me when they should have been listening to the sermon. His response to me was that maybe my baby was ministering to those women in a way his sermon wasn't able to that day. That response helped me as a Mother but it also helped me realise that we can all minister to each other in different ways no matter how old we are. (it also showed me that the Minister was comfortable enough to allow the Holy Spirit to work and to not need the attention on him as the Minister for a successful worship service) I have found in the churches I have attended where children are encouraged in services that children are more likely to be found dancing to the songs than crying through the sermon.

The article brings up many questions for me and I realise this is the opinion of one church and that they find this way works for them. I can't help but wonder what happens in this church to people who are intellectually disabled, have a mental illness, a condition that means they find it hard to sit still or stay quiet. Are they welcomed into the worship service or are they asked to watch the service in another room? (The article says they have a room where families who want to stay together can sit and watch the service via video)

As a mother I appreciate there are times where I enjoy being in a worship service without having the distractions of my children. I am grateful for our children's ministry volunteers who spend a lot of time preparing great quality children's programs and use their gifts and skills to teach and minister to my children. However, it's a choice and I also like the choice to have my children with me so we can worship together not only as a family but as part of the family of God. After our Pentecost service I asked my 7 year old what she heard in the sermon. She had heard quite a bit of the sermon, in some of her observations she had heard something different to the original context of the sermon but she had heard it in a way her 7 year old mind could understand and apply it to what she knew of God and how to apply it in her life. As she spoke I realised she was ministering to me as I heard the message, that I had given, in a different way.