Worship and Devotions

Worship Through the Senses - Lent 2025

During the coming weeks we will explore the embodied God through our senses: sight, sound, scent, touch and taste. Our first week's devotions touch on all of them and succeeding weeks explore them separately.

Notes:

Each week's devotions go from Wednesday to Sunday to Tuesday beginning with Ash Wednesday
Each day's devotions begin with the gathering litany and end with a blessing. (See below) You may choose to light a candle each day, either wax or battery operated.
Each day listen to/sing one of the hymns noting the ways in which the words refer to our senses; read the lesson for the week out loud again and then carry out one of the suggested meditations for the week. Please note that you may not be able or willing to do some of the meditations due to allergies or for other reasons. Just do those you feel able to do.
If you have family with you, do the devotions together.

Gathering Litany

For these forty days, we journey with Jesus down the Lenten path. We seek to experience the ways Christ's embodied life demonstrates God's love for us. We come with hearts ready to learn.

We hear stories of Jesus' life and of God's people, because they teach us how God calls us to live in the world. We come to learn from the stories of God's ancient people, Christ's life, and the church.

We engage through our senses with the power and mystery of the world God made, because this exploration calls us into wonder. We come to learn through the gifts of our senses.

We light candles to remind each other of the fulness of Christ's presence with us in our world. We come to learn how to better see and reflect the light of Christ.

We pray as Jesus taught us and go back into daily life with a deeper connection to the life and love of Jesus. We come to learn how to live more fully in the embodied image of God.

Blessing

May the Creator God, who made us whole, bless us in body and in spirit now and forever. Be open to the presence of Christ all around you. Amen

Week Three

March 19-23-25 - SOUND

God incarnate, you have given us ears to hear your voice in the sounds of nature, music, and the voices of our siblings. Open our ears and our hearts to receive the gifts you have for us, and teach us to share these gifts with the world. Amen.

Music

Earth and All Stars

Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song - ELW 403

Listen, God Is Calling - ELW 513

What Wondrous Love Is This | Lent Songs | Choir with Lyrics | Catholic Music | Sunday 7pm Choir

Reading for the Journey of Lent - Acts 2:1-21

As we hear the story of the church’s first Pentecost, listen for the different ways sound communicates God’s presence and power and for the ways in which God engages people to join in that communication. Read this lesson out loud. How does that change what you hear?

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews^[^a^] and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

¹⁷‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Meditations

Give us ears to hear the wisdom around us. Our ears are open for the lessons God provides. Amen.

Drumming Our Joy

Use whatever drums or other sound-making implements to create sounds and rhythms as you listen to the songs

Shaking Out Heavy Emotions

Emotions like anger, grief, and anxiety can cause us to hold tension in our bodies. Use tambourines, maracas or other shakers to use with the songs to loosen that tension.

Breathing Our Prayers

The Hebrew word for spirit and breath is the same, and our breath can be a medium for prayer. Engage in breath prayer saying one word or phrase on the inhale and another on the exhale, such as “receive/give” or “I breathe in love I breath out peace.”

Engaging With Words

Use a group of words such as – praise, hope, love, peace, forgiveness, accompaniment, joy, anger, sorrow, grief, aching, hurting, sore, “ and the like. Then write a prayer or prayers inspired by the words or word. Say the prayer out loud.

Music

Kneeling in the Dust to Form Us (with lyrics) - ELW/ACS 1099 - YouTube

Soli Deo Gloria - ELW 878

Will you come and follow me (The Summons). Lyric video (StF 673)

Lord Of The Dance Hymn (Contemporary Worship Song)