Join Us For Lenten Vespers: F2F or Online

Each Thursday during Lent, we gather at 6 pm for this Vespers Service, at The Welcome Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave.. You are welcome to join us, face to face, or if you are encountering this online, by participating and sharing prayers in the comment section and using the liturgy as a daily or weekly evening time of prayer and meditation and study.

The Welcome Table
A Free Universalist Christian Missional Community

Following the radical Jesus in deeds not creeds. Join us in service to our community throughout the week. 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 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 for all time. Christian because the generous compassionate way and story of Jesus, while not exclusively so, is our primary pathway opening up to God. Missional because we are sent to serve others more than ourselves. Community because we are made not to be autonomous individuals but to be a people of God.

Lenten Vespers

Invocation
Today is the day which God has made: Let us rejoice and be glad therein.
What does the Eternal require of us? To live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Chalice Lighting Covenant
This is our covenant as we walk together in life together or apart, in ways of God known or to be made known, as a people of God striving to make Jesus visible in the world: In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve all.

Evening Response

Now as we come to the setting of the sun and our eyes behold the evening light, we sing your praises, O God, for the blessings of the day, and we seek your presence as we face the night, finding your spirit there, waiting.

Song #46, Singing The Living Tradition, first verse, followed by humming the tune: Now The Day Is Over, Night Is Drawing Nigh, Shadows of the Evening, Steal Across the Sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVR3HoRJfLA&feature=related

Prayer of Confession:

Gracious and Loving God, we have erred and strayed from thy ways. We have followed too much the desires and devices of our own hearts. We have left undone those things we ought to have done, and done those things we ought not to have done. But, Thou, O God, have mercy upon us, You Restore Us with a pure heart and a gentle voice, and turn our lives to You, in service to others, especially those in affliction and oppression and those in need. Amen.

 Prayers interspersed with Silent Meditation

Embrace our darkness, we beg you, O Lord, and by your great mercy be with us in the midst of all perils and dangers. (You are invited to speak names of those for prayer each followed by unison response Hear our prayer. Please share your prayer requests, and blessings, in the comment section below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3sV3e-2a8 I lie down this night with God, gaelic night prayer meditation

The Lord's Prayer

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.

Reading and Conversation: We have been discussing selections from Father John Dear's book The Questions of Jesus. http://www.johndear.org/articles/theQuestionofJesus.htm

http://www.johndear.org/books/questionsofjesus2.htm

Responsive Reading #637, A Litany of Atonement

For remaining silent when a single voice wold have made a difference

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.
For each time our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible.

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.
For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.

For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.

For falling short of the admonitions of the spirit

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.
For losing sight of our unity

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.
For those and for so many acts both evident and subtle which have
fueled the illusion of separateness

We forgive ourselves and each other, we begin again in love.
--Robert Eller-Isaacs

Hymn 101 Abide With Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5nbq_VEea0

Responsive Reading 642, Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

http://theory.stanford.edu/~oldham/church/ps23-translations-2006Feb22/ps23-translations-2006Feb22.pdf For a variety of translations of this Psalm

Benediction:

May the peace of God go with you, wherever you are sent; may God guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm; may God bring you home rejoicing, at the wonders you have seen; may God bring you home rejoicing, once again into our doors.