Hello Song Leaders!

Below you will find all the songs we’ll be singing this summer at St. Lydia’s.  Since the Summer takes us through three whole months, there are a selection of songs for you to choose from in most categories.  Listen, and see what you’d like to learn and teach!

Gathering Song

“Sing God’s Praises Glory Hallelu” (this one is a new one!)

“Jesus We Are Gathered”

“Caribbean Hallelujah” (also new, and on its way!)

Candle Lighting Song

“Evening Lamps Are Lit”

“Come Light of Lights”

Table Acclamation

“Summer Table Acclamation”

Prayer Song

Click here to choose a Prayer Song

Offering Song

This is a new category this summer, a song that calls us back from clean up for the offering and announcements. 

“A-men!” (to come)

“Know That God is Good” (to come)

Closing Hymn 

June: Come Down O Love Divine

July: O Praise to Thee My God This Night

August: Day Is Done

This song, written by Cristi Cary Miller and Kathlyn Reynolds, and originally titled “Antiphonal Glory Hallelu,” creates an warm invitation into worship as a Gathering Song in the summer months.  It begins as a call and response, and then the phrases overlap to create a little bit of interest.  Listen to “Sing God’s Praises Glory Hallelu”

Here’s a quick rundown of the passages we’ll be reading this summer in the Book of Acts, and the sorts of themes we’ll be exploring as a part of the process.  Acts has a whole lot to say, especially to a church like St. Lydia’s, for we are in the very midst of sifting through some of the same questions.

• May 5, 2013
  • Acts 1:1-14

    Jesus ascends into heaven and tells the disciples to WAIT in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit.  We’ll hear from two congregants who have been doing one-on-ones as a part of the Season of Listening.  What does it mean to allow our actions to be guided by the Holy Spirit?

     

• May 12, 2013
  • Acts 1:15-26

    Matthias is chosen to replace Judas as a leader of the newly forming church.  We’ll hear from two more folks who have done one-on-ones during the Season of Listening.  What structures need to be in place for the church to grow, thrive, and bring healing and justice?

     

• Pentecost: May 19, 2013
  • Acts 2:1-13

    The Holy Spirit descends on the disciples in tongues of fire!  People from all different regions can suddenly understand one another, even though they’re speaking different languages.  The church was birthed in and through diversity — what does that mean for the church today and for our congregation?

     

• May 26, 2013
  • Acts 2:37-47

    Three thousand people are moved to become followers of Christ after hearing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  What is the relationship of the church to growth?

     

• June 2, 2013
  • Acts 5:12-42

    The apostles are persecuted, but God breaks them out of prison.  What is the relationship of the church to those who hold power?

     

• June 9, 2013
  • Acts 6, 7:54-8:3

    The breadth of the church widens and conflict is experienced for the first time.  How does new life and transformation occur in the midst of, and through conflict in a community?

     

• June 16, 2013
  • Acts 8:4-40

    The gospel and the church begin to extend beyond Jerusalem, as Philip preaches in Samaria and baptizes the Ethiopian Eunuch.  The gospel is for the whole world, and for all people — how do we live that out in the Church and at St. Lydia’s?

     

• June 23, 2013
  • Acts 9:1-31

    Saul, a zealous persecutor of Christians, is converted on the road to Damascus.  His story of complete transformation gives us an usual leader for the Church.

     

• June 30, 2013
  • Acts 9:32-43

    Tabitha is raised from the dead, and many more come to belief!  What role did women play in these early years of the Church?

     

• July 7, 2013
  • Acts 10

    Cornelius has a vision that shows him the Gospel is for gentiles — and that don’t need to follow Jewish practices in order to follow Christ.  Are there times when we cling to certain practices as a way of keeping others out, or keeping something for ourselves?

     

• July 21, 2013
  • Acts 15

    The Church weathers disputes with the Council at Jerusalem, and conflict continues to help them focus who they are.

     

• July 28, 2013
  • Acts 16

    We meet Lydia for the first time, and Paul and Silas are broken out of prison once more after healing a slave-girl who’s owners are distraught after loosing the income she provided.  How does money and ownership play into these stories of conversion and transformation?

     

• August 11, 2013
  • Acts 20

    We meet Priscilla and Aquila, two more women who were leaders in the early Church.  Why are their stories only told in passing, and what can we glean by reading between the lines?

     

• August 18, 2013
  • Acts 21:17-23:11

    Paul faces the legal system in Jerusalem, and hears God’s call to Rome.  What role has Paul’s suffering played in the birth of the Church, and how does the next step of the growth of the Church reveal itself?

     

• August 25, 2013
  • Acts 27

    Paul travels toward Rome and is shipwrecked along the way.  Almost to the finish line and disaster strikes!  Perhaps a familiar story.

     

• September 1, 2013
  • Acts 28

    Paul lands in Rome and the Book of Acts ends with the Gospel being brought to “the ends of the earth.”  The Book of Acts tells a story of the “spread” of the Gospel.  What does that mean for progressive Christians?  How are we called to share this story, with who, and when?

If you’re looking to learn more about Acts, here’s some books you might enjoy:

Acts For Everyone, and the accompanying study guide, Acts: 24 Studies for Individuals and Groups, by N. T. Wright, an Anglican bishop and New Testament Scholar.  Wright goes through the book in sections, giving readers a historical overview while pulling out themes questions relevant to a modern reader.

Women in the Acts of the Apostles by Ivoni Richter Reimer.  Reimer draws on Latin American Liberation Theology, examining the stories of five women who appear (albeit briefly) in the Book of Acts, including our own namesake, Lydia.

Called to be Church: The Book of Acts for a New Day, by Anthony B. Robinson and Robert W. Wall.  This work is the fruit of a interdenominational collaboration of Evangelical, Free Methodist professor and a United Church of Christ pastor, asking what the Book of Acts has to say to today’s church.

Have some more recommendations?  Leave a comment!

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!

-Read at the Holy Vigil of Easter, 2013, at St. Lydia’s 

To allow silence
To admit it in us

always moving
Just past

senses, the darkness
What swallows us

and we live amongst
What lives amongst us

*

These grim anchors
That brief sanctity

the sea
Cast quite far

when you seek
—in your hats black

and kerchiefs—
to bury me

*

Do not weep
but once, and a long

time then
Thereafter eat till

your stomach spills over
No more! you’ll cry

too full for your eyes
to leak

*

The words will wait

*

Place me in a plain
pine box I have been

for years building
It is splinters

not silver
It is filled of hair

*

Even the tongues
of bells shall still

*

You who will bear
my body along

Spirit me into the six
Do not startle

at its lack of weight
How light

-Read on Good Friday, 2013, at St. Lydia’s

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

-Read at St. Lydia’s on March 24, 2013