Today’s post is from John Michael Longworth, OEF, Pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran in Rutland, VT.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church is nestled in the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains in the small city of Rutland. Just downhill from ski areas like Killington and Pico, and a short drive from beautiful glacial lakes and the southern reaches of Lake Champlain, this picturesque community is surrounded by forest, farms and an array of wildlife. I like to imagine that it’s not that different from the hilly region that Francis of Assisi called home when he was called to rejuvenate the Church.

We have the good fortune of having a beautiful sanctuary, with stained glass windows celebrating the creation story, and also a peaceful outdoor chapel with a hand cut stone altar. The back drop for this worship space is an awe inspiring vista of the western slope of the Green Mountains. For several years, this outdoor chapel has been used during the summer months for a festive alternative liturgy called “Saturday Night on the Hill”. This lively outdoor service has included folk & blues music, Taize with live accompaniment, and favorite songs from our Synod’s camp.

Four years ago, the local Episcopal priest was not available to offer the blessing of the animals at our county Humane Society shelter and I was invited to fill in. It was a real joy. However, the following year the responsibility went to the newly arrived rector. Our worship team decided to make use of our incredible setting and the exceptional foliage that is often present at the beginning of October to host one last Saturday Night on the Hill which included a blessing of the animals.

In addition to the fun that barks, meows and caws add to worship, this event is a great way each year to celebrate the stewardship of creation. At the same time, it is an opportunity to share about Francis of Assisi and the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans (www.oeffranciscans.org), to which I belong. Last year we expanded the celebration by hosting this worship jointly with our brothers and sisters of the Rutland United Methodist Church. Their pastor, The Rev. Hannah K. Rogers helped to lead the worship.

I firmly believe that our call to preach the Gospel extends beyond the people in our pews in a typical week. A blessing of the animals is a wonderful way to share love with our neighbors, the furred and feathered ones, and the loving families who bring them.

Today’s post is from Mike Woods, pastor at Prince of Peace in La Crescent, MN.

This summer we took out a couple of pews in the back of church, long wooden benches that are designed for fifty minute sitting sessions. We replaced the pews with coloring tables. They were an immediate hit. No signs were needed as to why the tables were there. Their presence just said WELCOME to a certain segment of the communion of saints.

One week later we heard Jesus’ story of this crazy farmer who threw seeds everywhere. A nine year old came to the communion table and with pride handed me her very accurate time lapse drawing of the life cycle of a seed that she wanted me to share with the congregation to make us all better people. I did.

The next week I was talking to a grown up about grown up things after church when I felt this tug my sleeve. The little one tugging was excited to show me something with such excitement that she forgot to wipe the ample supply of pumpkin bar off her hand so it now adorns my sleeve at the elbow.

She too needed to show what she had drawn during worship. We had heard Jesus’ story of the wheat and the weeds. I thought I was helpful when I said to consider that the kingdom of heaven like it is God’s holy ecosystem where weeds are necessary, like mosquitoes are necessary but in the end God knows what God is doing. Seemingly opposite things can co-exist in God’s church – sort of like Viking fans and Packer fans worshipping together.

Well she took all this in and produced a work of art that included a puppy, playing with a kitty, who was playing with a mouse who was playing with the puppy … a beloved community of play. She was probably five years old but a very good theologian. The stain would come out in the wash the next day but I am still thinking about that drawing.

That same morning I came face to face with a three year old artist and his interpreter (mom). I saw a series of colorful slashings on his eight and a half by eleven canvas. I was told the larger blue scribbles are the wheat. The contrasting green slashes are the weeds. Both sets of plants seemed to be thriving. Yup, I thought, the wheat was good seed, unimpeded by weeds. God will use the wheat to make blue bread and the green weeds God can bundle up to build the fire to bake the bread.

When I asked about the bonus picture on the back of the paper of a rhinoceros and its horn and a wheel. The interpreter just shrugged her shoulders.

I like the piece on my door where a five year old wrote: “You are God’s light” from the bottom of her paper up, so that the word “light” was like a crescendo on top of the pile of letters. It does make sense if you think about it.

Speaking of light – another five year old showed me her drawing of red clouds, a yellow sun, green grass and two stick people with skinny arms touching one another and a beam of yellow glowing between those arms. What is this yellow here I asked. She looked at me with all the confidence in the world and said, “That’s friendship!” Is not friendship the stuff of light, and necessary for life as yellow sunlight?

Then there is the toddler who makes her own kind of music every time the congregation sings a hymn. She grabs a songbook like everyone else but she only knows one song so far in her short life. So with conviction and gusto she belts out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every single time! Last Sunday for our last song the whole congregation, a couple hundred strong, sang in one voice, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star … because her daddy is serving in the military in Saudi Arabia and he wanted to let his daughter know it’s okay to sing her own song.

Because when churches use the word “we,” we always mean one more.

Today’s post from Craig Mueller, pastor at Holy Trinity in Chicago, IL.

With cremation growing more common, so are memorial services. For many people today, having a body present for a funeral is considered unnecessary. Families may want some time with the body of the deceased immediately after death, but then they want the body taken away so they don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Most people today feel that the “soul” is the essence of a person, making the body of no significance after death. Yet the bodies of the faithful are washed in baptism. Bodies receive the laying on of hands at confirmation and anointing with oil in rites of healing. And most importantly, the eucharist is a meal which involves bodily eating and drinking.

I sense an absence when at a memorial liturgy that has neither the body or the ashes of the deceased present. To say the words of commendation—“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant, Jane”—to the air suggests that it is a soul, not an embodied person that we are commending to God.

I would highly recommend a significant book on funeral practices by Thomas Long: Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). Long acknowledges there are plenty of situations in which a body, coffin, or ashes cannot be present for a memorial liturgy and that Christians can certainly “raise the resurrection song,” but questions this as the new norm. Despite a biblical anthropology that does not divide body and soul, Long wonders whether a body seems of lesser importance at a funeral because “we esteem the spirituality of the mind over the materialism of the body.”

Even though we talk about the body as a “shell,” we go to great lengths to recover a body or even some of the remains when someone is lost at sea or crushed in the World Trade Center disaster, for example. By paying attention to these deep human responses to death we might rethink why the presence of a body, or at least the ashes from cremation, should be present at a Christian funeral or memorial service (Long, pp. 33-44).

Though a pastoral case for the presence of the body at worship is going against the grain of societal practice, I urge religious leaders to have these important conversations: not necessarily when a family has already decided what they want to do following the death of a loved one, but in less anxious contexts such as sermons, classes, and other congregational settings. For example, I would encourage a family to have the ashes of the deceased present at a funeral—perhaps along with photographs—to emphasize the importance of the body of their loved one.

Pastor Mueller’s recently released book, Any Body There? Worship and Being Human in a Digital Age, includes further reflection on the importance of the body in worship. For further resources on funeral planning, see the newly released In Sure and Certain Hope: A Funeral Sourcebook.

Today’s post is from Paul Vasile, Executive Director of Music that Makes Community.

For over ten years Music That Makes Community has hosted workshops around the United States and Canada inviting participants to experience the power of paperless singing. The work started with a question and a challenge: how could we invite worshippers to participate in liturgy without hymnals, bulletins, or screens? How might clergy and musicians develop the skills – non-verbal communication, modeling and imitation, focused listening – to lead song (and liturgy) with sensitivity and care? And without minimizing the richness and depth of musical experiences mediated through paper, how could singing ‘by heart’ strengthen community and invite the participation of reluctant or disenfranchised singers?

A central piece of our work has been finding and creating repertoire that lends itself to paperless singing. Looking to ancient sources, songs and song forms used in cultures where communal singing is the norm, as well as a talented group of living composers, MMC has been developing a body of song for use in liturgy and community life. Singing in Community published by Augsburg Fortress in July 2017 is our newest compilation, with 50+ songs drawn from our first collection, Music By Heart, global songs, and new material written by our workshop facilitators and participants.

There are gathering songs, prayer songs in several languages, Eucharistic responses, songs for distribution, and table graces, as well as tunes and texts well-suited to ecumenical and interfaith gatherings. The range of musical styles is intentionally eclectic and broad, and we encourage congregations to discover the songs best serve their worship context and needs. Introductory essays give helpful guidance in leading and introducing paperless song to your community.

We invite you to pick up a copy of ‘Singing in Community,’ find additional resources and repertoire on our website,  or join us for an upcoming workshop and experience our work firsthand!

Greetings! My name is Jennifer Baker-Trinity. As a Deacon in the ELCA and the new Program Director for Resource Development here in the ELCA/Augsburg Fortress, I am excited to share with you a bit about this shared position and a little about me.

About this new position…

“Program Director for Resource Development.” After managing the 12-syllable title, you might wonder, what is that? This new position is creative in that it is shared between the ELCA worship office and Augsburg Fortress, part of 1517 Media. Since Augsburg Fortress works closely with the worship office in publishing materials for the church, it makes sense to have someone working in both worlds. On the Augsburg Fortress side, my position will include editing Sundays and Seasons and other worship/music related resources. With wonderful colleagues, I look forward to visioning together about resources to serve the church.

In the ELCA world, I will be helping to lead events and teach, thereby connecting leaders to resources that will help them along the way. For example, my first task will be in working with the upcoming Worship at the Center event: “Journeying from Ash Wednesday to Easter.” I am thrilled to be working with a talented team of presenters who will engage us in why and how we keep The Three Days (shameless plug: Registration goes up in mid-September at www.elca.org/Worship so stay tuned!)

About me…

I come to this position with a background in liturgy and church music and a love for interdisciplinary work. I found the training of musicians with pastors at the then Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia to be especially formative for my call as well as my involvement with the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM). Since seminary, I served as a writer and church musician, most recently from Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania.

Another hat I wear is serving as Co-Director for the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University. This Institute has continually been a source for my spiritual renewal, first as a college student in the previous millennium!

I am discovering a few of this state’s ten thousand lakes as I make my home with my spouse, three children and one cat in Shoreview, Minnesota. I work out of the office at 1517 Media in Minneapolis. I even got to see the eclipse out the 8^th floor window on my first day!

I look forward to good conversations and partnerships in this church and beyond.

Today’s post is from Shelly Satran, a pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Vero Beach, FL.

How can we engage children in worship when we don’t know if there will even be any?

We regularly ask ourselves this question at the congregation I serve. We have families and children in our congregation, but spread across our three worship services, and given our demographic in a Florida coastal retirement town we never know if we might have two kids (“kids” used broadly here, one might be a toddler and one a teenager) or ten at a worship service.

This question presented itself to us eight years ago when we realized children’s sermons weren’t working in our context. We decided to drop them, but committed to involving kids in worship in any way we could. We still have work to do, but here are some things that have been successful.

The first simple way we engage kids in worship, is to ask them! This one is a no-brainer, but still worth stating. We wear ourselves out texting, calling, asking in person, instant messaging, anything we can think of to involve young people in worship. As a result, not counting the youth acolytes, there is rarely a Sunday service that we don’t have youth or children involved as ushers, greeters, readers, musicians (from talented high school instrumentalists to an eight-year-old playing the rain stick), or worship leaders. It is definitely harder work to get youth to commit versus an adult. We have more issues with no shows than we do with adults, but it is worth it. The more we ask our young people to participate in the regular roles in worship the more they feel worship is for them.

Secondly, and this falls into an important category for us of ideas we can add or omit depending on whether children are present, is to have a “kids’ question” in the sermon. This works similarly to how a children’s sermon question might work, but the kids are less on the spot, they can choose to raise their hand from their seats or not, and they are never on their own to answer because there are always adults who may whisper the answer or can’t help but blurt it out themselves. Plus we fold the questions into the sermon so that it isn’t a separate kids’ moment, but rather they are a part of what everyone else is participating in—God’s Word.

Our kids’ questions might involve an activity like: “Look through your worship folder/bulletin and count how many times the word “peace” appears.” As they are looking the sermon continues, but at some point I ask the kids for the answer and fold it into the rest of the sermon. Another kid’s question might be to circle all of the animals (or plants, or towns, or disciples, or anything that forms a small category) in the readings and show me after worship. Sometimes, not always, I have stickers or candy in my pocket as a prize.

The kids’ question might be some very basic Bible trivia that even the youngest would know or it might relate to the bulletin cover art—“Listen to the Gospel reading and see if you can name the three people depicted on the bulletin.” The great thing about the kids’ question is that it works if there are 20 kids in worship or two or zero. We have a Saturday night worship service that is usually not attended by kids, except for one not-shy boy. I will often call the kids question the “Gregory question” at that service, or if no kids are present I will make the kids’ question into an everybody question. We don’t have the kids’ question in the sermon every week. Then it would lose some of its novelty, but regularly enough that the kids know to listen up and wait for it.

Third, and also in the category of easily added or omitted, during the sending hymn we gather up any youth in worship (again they may range from toddler to teenager) invite them up front with the pastors and worship leaders. By “gather them up” I mean one of us pastors walks out and gets them. Or at a service with more children, we send older kids out to do the gathering. Once the young people are all up front, two or twelve of them, we all recess out of worship together and then the children lead the final “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord.” sending from the baptismal font. We’ve never had any trouble recruiting kids for this role probably because being first to the back of the sanctuary positions them to be first in line for cookies after worship.

So if you are like us and you may only have a smattering of children in worship, don’t be discouraged. Wear yourself out to include them. It will be worth the effort. To them and the congregation, their presence will feel larger than the actual numbers. Hear it in the voices of children: “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord!”