Friday, November 18, 2011

This Sunday's Thanksgiving Meal Worship order of service: a menu/liturgy; followed by missional movie "Of Gods and Men"

 This Sunday Nov. 20 beginning at 9:30 am (but of course come when you can for as long as you can, worship is more party than program, but you definitely get more out the more you can contribute with your presence) come be with us at our community center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., as we will have a very special worship experience for Thanksgiving (see the liturgy below).

We are creating liturgy around our common meal preparation and serving and eating in a sacred mindful conversational way, full of singing, prayers, interesting questions to discuss, sharing of stories from our lives, bringing items from home from our kitchens or lives to put on the altar, bringing items for salad and for soup, making our bread for communion and to share for the Thanksgiving dinner, potlucking any other items we want to contribute, and will close our meal worship gathering in time to also host a 1 pm (ish) showing of the movie "Of Gods and Men" based on a true story of French monks serving their Muslim neighbors, not trying to convert them, and being caught between corrupt government forces, terrorists, and their own crises of faith in what it means to follow Jesus even in dangerous times and places.

Here is our order of service to help shape and deepen our customary and beloved holy chaos; this worship meal experience will, it is hoped, help individuals and families to make all their meals more sacred, by affording models to use, and even after this special Thanksgiving Service we will adapt a modified version of the liturgy for use at all our common meals.

Thanks to missional progressive colleague Christy Moore for inspiration, participation and co-leading this first of our worshipful meals or meals of worship.

We hope to see you there, as we seek to make our worship more missional as well as our service in and with community, even if it is your first time to gather with us. Come and see. This is Reverse Offering Sunday, our annual giving out of money to persons and families to take and be a blessing in the community, to be creative and start something lasting, or contribute to something new, to say thanks to someone, to surprise someone and yourself; we will hear stories back from our reverse offering when we gather in January on Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday. Even if this is your first time, please come and take a reverse offering back into the world with you.


The Welcome Table Gathering

free.universalist.christian.missional.community

Thanksgiving Worship Meal

Liturgy/Menu

Experiencing God in Radical Hospitality and Service To Others

“While at Levi’s House, Jesus ate with tax-collectors and sinners (today we would say he was eating with terrorists and child sex offenders); when the religious authorities saw him doing so, they asked his followers why he was shaming himself and them and their whole community by doing so; on overhearing this, Jesus stepped in (reminding them by his action that if anyone had a problem with another they should go directly to that other with it and not to someone else) and he said, “Anyone can eat with those who are like them, and who they like and are liked by them, but those of us especially who follow our God of Israel, a God who commands us to treat the strangers as one of us because we were once strangers in another land, we must do more than that in order to do God’s will. After all, even though the world of the Empire may think and do otherwise, should doctors treat only the well and not the sick? Our meals are like doctors for the soul.  If you are full and happy and think you are perfect  and have brought nothing to give, you won’t understand God is at this table, that God is for the ungodly. But if you are not well, take off your heavy burdens and lay them down, and come rest and be nourished at this table and yes, even by these people of God.” ---a rendering of the gospel based on Mark 2

“We’ll stay hungry if we eat alone. We’ll starve if we believe that a community is a supernatural kind of miracle, or a product we can buy—not something we create by offering ourselves recklessly to others. We’ll never feel truly fed if we’re constantly competing to get our share, if we believe that love is scarce, and are afraid to give it away.”---Sara Miles

Invocation and Gathering

Today is the day which God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad therein. For what does the Eternal require of us? To live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. We covenant to walk together with one another not in creed, but in deed, to walk together in the ways of God known and to be made known. In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve others.

Responsive Reading 425: from Psalm 65

First Movement: Washing and Blessing The Hands and Preparing the Meal

Blessed are you, Holy One. You hold us in your hands. Be with us in THIS day. Bless our hands, that we might hold others as dearly as you hold them. Blessed be the hands that grow food and those that prepare meals. Blessed be the hands that wash dishes and clean floors. Blessed be the hands that anoint the sick and offer blessings. Blessed be the hands that guide the young. Blessed be the hands that grow stiff with age. Blessed be the hands that comfort the dying and have held the dead. Blessed be the hands that greet strangers. Blessed be the hands for all the work, all the play, all the love, that we give. Blessed be the hands into which we receive life; bless be the hands into which we pass the future. Blessed be the hands that pass peace.

Greetings

Preparing the Meal and Conversation: Where did our components of the meal come from? Do we just eat with an assumption of food that just appears? Sharing Stories of where our food ingredients came from, whether shopping or gardens. How have we prepared the space for our meal? How does food grow community? Where is God in the garden, in the slaughterhouses, in the factories, in the transport, in the stores, in the kitchen?

Responsive Reading: We Give Thanks This Day, #512

Songs of Thanksgiving: For The Beauty of The Earth, #21, Tis A Gift to Be Simple #16, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, #126

Second Movement: Deepening Our Lives At The Tables and The Altar

Setting the Altar and Moments of Silence and Sharing Stories with items that have meaning from our homes and our lives. What kind of tables did Jesus gather? Where have our tables come from? What makes the communion table different and the same? What is a blessing? What do we bring to the table, of blessings?

Songs of Meditation and Mindfulness:

Find A Stillness, #352

Prayers of Community

Dona Nobis Pacem, #388

The Prayer Jesus Taught Those Who Would Follow in his Radical Compassionate Way:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Responsive Reading: We Lift Up Our Hearts in Thanks, #515

Third Movement: Breaking Bread/Pouring Cup/Eucharist/Meal

Songs of Communion: We’re Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table, #407

Responsive Reading: Food For the Spirit, #726

Conversation: Vulnerability as Virture. How do we break open our lives to share with others?

Communion Prayer: O God, we gather at this welcoming table open to all no matter what, remembering how Jesus gathered people from all the walks of life, stranger and friend and enemies, gave thanks to you, offered all the bread of life and the cup of blessing and proclaimed a covenant of love for all in your name.  We remember too the wonder of his life, as we remember the wonder of all of Creation given unto us and how all are One, and all lives sacred.  We remember his death and how on the night before he died he still gathered in love to share a meal and the hope for a better world, and we remember all the terrors and the tyrannies that oppress people today. In the mystery of faith in the everlasting Spirit, the triumph over fear, help us to remember to practice resurrection everyday, as we remember all those who have given Love the ultimate trust and the last word and who have worked to create the beloved community of renewed and abundant life. Help us to remember with this meal especially all those who are hungry, and may we treat all our meals as sacred and to be shared. Take us, bless us, so that even in and with our brokenness we may serve others and receive Your Spirit. Amen.

Breaking and Passing the Bread of Life, Pouring and Passing the Cup of Hope

Song of Communion: Let Us Break Bread Together, #406

Passing Our Plates and Serving One Another

Dinner and Food Justice Conversation on Questions

Fourth Movement: Taking Home

Unison Prayer for Our Composting and Recycling: Creator God, we thank you for the abundance of resources with which we are blessed. We repent the abuse and overuse of these gifts. And we now ask for your guidance in restoring the face of the earth. Amen.

Song of Thanksgiving: We Sing Now Together, #67

Reverse Offering Blessings: #702, distributing envelopes, #704

Song of Benediction: Go Now in Peace, #413

You are invited to stay for the movie and discussion of the film “Of Gods and Men” based on a true story of a monastery of French monks caring for Muslim neighbors and caught between corrupt government forces and terrorists.

About The Welcome Table Missional Community

We seek to freely follow the radical Jesus in deeds not creeds. Join us in service to our community throughout the week. That is the primary way we become church. Our Welcome Table of Worship is open to all who welcome all, regardless of belief or denomination, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, economic status, or political affiliations.  We don’t think Jesus would have it any other way.

Free. Universalist.Christian.Missional. Community.

Free because we are non-creedal. We don’t give theological tests for admission, but encourage you to test us and try us to see if this way is for you.  Universalist because we believe God is Love and All who abide in Love abide in God, and God’s love is for all for all time and nothing can separate us from the Love of God.  Christian because the generous compassionate way and story of Jesus, is our primary, but not exclusive, pathway opening up to God. Missional because we are sent to serve others more than ourselves, building up God’s beloved community more than our own, putting our time talent and treasure more into the world than into our own organization. Community because we are made not to be autonomous individuals but to be a people of God.

Our Mission, Vision, Values

We are created by and for the Mission of God. We seek to make the spirit of Jesus visible in the world, especially through small acts of justice done with great love. To heal the sick, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, invite the stranger, visit the prisoner, free the captive and the oppressed, give sight to the blind, clothe the naked, and proclaim the year of God’s Jubilee Forgiveness of Debts.

We are a simple church, but it can be a deep struggle to live toward true freedom, to practice  God’s love for all, to follow the liberating Jesus who was crucified for his radical ways of hospitality and justice, to live for and serve others more than self, and to put community first.  We invite those who wish to struggle with us, to fail with us, and to continue struggling with us.  Worship gatherings and common meal are our times to refresh our spirits for the service of God. We will at some time break one another’s hearts and not be what and who we want ourselves to be; we begin again in love.

We encourage one another in common practices: daily acts of random acts of beauty and kindness; daily prayer and meditation; weekly worship; monthly spiritual accountability; annual retreat; lifetime pilgrimage. Striving to find ways to Relinquish wealth and privilege and Living Simply so that others may simply live. Working for the Relocation of our lives and resources to the abandoned places of the American Dream Empire. Redistribution of Goods and the Common Good. Reconciliation through Relationships with those who are different from us.

5920 N. Owasso Ave. Turley/NorthTulsa, OK 74126 918-691-3223 918-794-4637

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