New music telling the ancient story can bring that story alive in our own time. This week’s liturgy offers three new congregational hymns that are part of the Lenten/Holy Week story. Progressive Christianity suggests these:
Hymn lyrics by Rev. Jim Gertmenian |
From the Boundless Life collection |
Tenebrae means “shadows,” and for centuries, Christians have held tenebrae services during Holy Week, gradually extinguishing candles in the sanctuary. At the same time, an Advent wreath is a time-honored practice of worshiping at home, lighting candles of hope, peace, joy, and love.
"Holy Week Tenebrae" brings these two streams of Christian tradition together, creating a fresh, familiar way to explore the deeper meanings of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. The wreath's candles are lit with the "hosannas" of Palm Sunday; extinguished, one by one, as the week unfolds; and finally restored to a new splendor on Easter morning. Each day includes a simple order of service: prayers, biblical readings, songs, and time for reflecting together as the shadows come and go.
Rev. Emily Meyer shares hybrid and outdoor liturgies for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Morning.
Includes activities for weekly Intergenerational Lenten Wonder Stations that lead to a Good Friday Stations of the Cross.
The Work of the People has curated a rich list for Holy Week, including Scattered Palms; a Psalm 118 Inspired Liturgy (for Palm Sunday or Easter Morning); Come and Take and Eat (among a long list for Maundy Thursday); The Old Story and Fruitful Darkness (among a long list for Good Friday); and Easter/Resurrection films.
Progressive Christianity offers an extensive online Service and Gathering Planning resource library, searchable by topic and element of worship.
An Illustrated Holy Week: Including children’s moment illustrations, children’s activity bulletins for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, coloring pages, and interactive worship guides for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday (which would take some adapting to virtual church, but would give you some great material to get you started); and Holy Week Coloring Pages.
She also shares creative ideas for sermons, liturgical suggestions and full liturgies for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, The Easter Vigil and Easter Morning; with a comprehensive Family Guide, or options for breaking the week into Palm Sunday, Easter Vigil and Easter Morning.
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Let this Maundy Thursday be a day of service like this church.
Sustain caring for neighbors with great love with a soundtrack and a big pot of soup/chili served outside. Share enfleshed's Blessing of the Meal or one of these Communion Liturgies, (see especially In the Uncertainty, which seems to name it all right now). Please don't do a seder of any kind. If tempted, read this.
Illustrated Ministry's Seven Last Words Worship Planning Guide is divided into three sections to facilitate a versatile approach to worship planning:
GOOD FRIDAY GRIEF & LAMENT
Consider reinterpreting the violence inherent to this day with the SALT Project's take-home resource, Understanding the Cross
Maybe Good Friday is simply about lament; a space to grieve all that has been lost. God's Grief, The Many's pay-and-play service, Sojourner's collection of prayers or your own tradition's liturgy for the dying all speak to our too-familiar loss; enfleshed's prayer poems for grief and loss, their contemplative service of story and song, or this prayer for healing might be a good fit, too.
The Way of the Cross: New Ideas for Lenten Prayer and Devotion
By Marty Wheeler Burnett (she/her/hers) on Feb 09, 2022
Virginia Theological Seminary's 40-minute video, The Way of the Cross (El Vía Crucis), is available free of charge for Lenten worship in English and Spanish.
Read more here about moving it outdoors and making it interactive.
A Sanctified Art offers a bundle of 11 multimedia ministry resources for the seasons of Lent-Easter, following the RCL Year C (all are digital files):
In the Brilliant Sunshine
