Pentecost Order of Service, May 31, 2020

May 29, 2020 by Michael Caine in Congregation, Featured, Getting Ready for Worship, Worship 0 172 0

A Service of Worship for Pentecost, May 31, 2020 — Old First Church, Philadelphia, PA

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Rev. Michael Caine, pastor; Holly Phares, music director; William Lowden, organist

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Reminder: The Zoom 5 minute grace period that we have been observing is over!

Michael will begin worship with the Welcome at 11 o’clock on the dot.

Welcome

Prelude Every Time I Feel the Spirit

John Carter

Altar Building — please choose a sign or symbol you identify with a personal experience of the Holy Spirit

Wa Wa Wa Emimimo (Come, O Holy Spirit Come)

All sing repeatedly, alternating in Yoruba and English:

Wa wa wa emimimo!

Wa wa wa alagbara!

Wa-o, wa-o, wa-o!

Come, O Holy Spirit, come!

Come, Almighty Spirit, come!

Come! Come! Come!

Words of Gathering (poem below by William Loader)

Joanna: Wind, wind, you come from nothingness and go to nothingness, and when you are still, there is nothing we see, nothing we hear, and you surround us in our not seeing and not knowing.

Forrests (as many Forrests as I can get in front of the camera reading simultaneously): Wild, wild wind,you whip the seas, whirling great water spouts and fountains,crashing on the foamed edges of the shore, sweeping the unsuspecting fisherman from the slippery rocks, terrifying force, uncontrollable, beyond our power.

O wind, piercing wind, driving the blizzard, the sleet, the rain, trampling earth with wild tempests and tantrums that uproot trees, unroof houses and wreak devastation in your path.

Jillian: Wind, wind, wondrous wind, hovering at the birth of creation, whisking secretly among the wonders of new life, bearing the seed, lifting high the heads of mighty trees, swirling among the grasses, celebrating life.

Bobbie: Wind, wind, we know your ways, we trace your web on the map of highs and lows, today’s weather, tomorrow’s predictions, depressions and sea breezes, we harness your power, our weather cocks point to you, a cross shows where you have been and we do not know.

Joanna: O wind, O silent wind, where do you go? Do you go away and play, in outback gorges or bare mountains of the desert, stirring small clouds of red dust among the bushes,kissing the rippled smile of the billabong, running down the slopes, exulting at the rock face,passing by the mountain with none to see and none to know your trail.

Bobbie: Wind, gentle wind, wind of our breathing, our life, our hope, renewing, refreshing, sighing in our stress, moaning in our pain, still in our dying.

Jillian: O wind, wind, you breathed upon the clay and there was life, you danced down to the forehead of a Galilean and there was hope, you shook the foundations of community and there was Pentecost.

All: (I will invite everyone to say together, muted, what’s on the screen):

Wind of nothingness and awe,

wind of knowing and unknowing,

wind of bearing and begetting,

wind of secrets and mystery,

O wise, wise wind,

whisper to us your grace.

Confession — Emily Paull (adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgical Community)

One: O, God, you search us and know us, and all that we are open to you. We confess that we have sinned…

A second voice (with all on mute) In your mercy, Lord. Forgive us and heal us.

(and on like that, Emily prays and the second voice / person responds…)

When we use our power to dominate or accept our weakness as a fact…