Pentecost and Ordinary Time
The imagery surrounding the giving of the Spirit that we celebrate particularly during Pentecost touches all the senses in tongues of flame, voices proclaiming Good News in every language, and bread and wine shared amongst a community gathered to become empowered for mission. These resources are offered to expand and enrich community worship throughout the season.
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What's New for Pentecost and Ordinary Time
New Zealand liturgist Bosco Peters offers a liturgy for a Pentecost vigil.
UCC pastor Katherine Hawker offers an impressive array of original texts for worship this season, including litanies, poems, and prayers.
The Rev. Jennifer Phillips offers prayers for Ordinary Time, Hiroshima Day, and the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Hermanoleon has some free (and some very colorful!) downloadable clip art for Pentecost.
The Seekers Church, a community in the tradition of the Church of Our Savior, offers this Pentecost liturgy from 2006 and this page also has links to their liturgies for other years.
The Anglican website "Full Homely Divinity" offers these prayers for a baccalaureat service, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer, Robert Rodenmayer's The Parson's Prayerbook , and a prayer of John Henry Newman.
The Roman Catholic site "Ancient-Future.net" offers this collection of resources for Pentecost and this page devoted to resources for Ordinary Time.
This page of ideas for Pentecost liturgy was the product of a D.Min. thesis from Moira Laidlaw of the Uniting Church of Australia, and it is particularly valuable for its very practical lists of materials and preparations needed to accompany its liturgical suggestions.
The General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church offers this extensive collection of resources and this page of aids for planning worship in Pentecost, much of which could be easily translated for Anglican contexts.
Other Resources for Pentecost and Ordinary Time
The Wild Goose Worship Group of the Iona Community in Scotland has several books of prayers and ideas for liturgy for various seasons. Present on Earth: Worship Resources on the Life of Jesus is a collection of such resources for Ordinary Time, and it's available from GIA Publications. The Love Which Heals, also from the Wild Goose Worship Group and GIA Publications, has an order of worship, short reflections, and optional choral pieces for services for those who are grieving; it's helpful not just for memorial and burial services, but for a variety of pastoral occasions of grief.
A variety of progressive preachers write reflections on the coming Sunday's lessons in the Revised Common Lectionary as an aid for sermon preparation and bible study. Faith Inkubators offers a free series called Women of the Word on women in scripture, and College Devotions, which they encourage friends and family of college students to e-mail to them along with personal notes to encourage them in their faith journey.
John Bell of the Iona Community and Graham Maule have penned a collection of sketches for starting conversation or reflecting on scripture; it's called Jesus and Peter: Off-the-Record Conversations, and it's available from GIA Publications.
Steve Taylor — "Emergent Kiwi" to Internet blog readers — posts about an evening service with a powerful visual center of flames from a stone. You can find out how he did it and what he did with it here.
Forministry.com offers several Pentecost-themed activities for small groups, families, or Sunday School classes.
Noted "emerging church" writer Jonny Baker reflects on principles for "Using Images for Worship" on the website for Grace, a monthly service of creative worship in London.
Resonate is a network of communities engaging in creative worship in Canada, and they have posted a free photo pool of images for use in worship and meditation.
Xsn.cc is a nonprofit based in Wiltshire, UK, who offer a searchable image bank for congregations as well as a helpful guide to other sources of free images.
The Episcopal Diocese of Washington has a photo essay on the Labyrinth and some truly gorgeous artwork from Dr. He Qi on their Spirituality web page.
A Visual Planet carries an extensive and excellent library of images and backgrounds from a variety of painters, photographers, and digital artists for use in Christian worship. Their library is searchable by keyword, and subscribers get unlimited downloads for $24.95 a month. Their visuals for the keywords "spirit" and "fire," for example, would be particularly appropriate for Pentecost.
The Text This Week has sermon aids, liturgical resources, and an index of art keyed according to themes related to lectionary readings for Pentecost.
Forministry.com provides this collection of images they recommend particularly for use during the season of Pentecost.
The Pitts Theology Library Digital Image Archive has a very useful collection of images for each Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary.
One Small Barking Dog is an innovative UK-based seller of media -- still images, video clips, and short films (e.g., "Have You Seen God?" -- a "man on the street" video of a fashionable guy asking people on the street where God is) -- for use in worship and teaching. Those browsing can preview before buying, and then download purchases immediately.
The rock band U2 is among the biggest in the world, known for their spiritually and socially attuned lyrics, which often explicitly refer to Christian and biblical texts and themes, and have increasingly been used in Christian worship services, with "eU2charists" receiving international press. The Rev. Paige Blair of the Diocese of Maine makes use of U2's music regularly in worship services for all ages, and has made available her slides for a "U2charist" service of Baptism in PowerPoint and PDF format.
Church of the Apostles, an innovative church plant inspired by ancient monastic tradition and jointly sponsored by the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, has released Ordo, a CD (available via mail order or download) of music they use for worship with an included PDF file with leadsheets for all songs. And for those of a more 'contemporary' guitars-and-drums musical bent, Worship Together is a leading source of materials including songbooks, CDs, training materials, and articles from and about well-known worship leaders.
Finally, there are some new reflections on creating liturgy and leading worship from Sarah Dylan Breuer, a contributor to Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog (Cowley Publications), who writes on what she's learned about planning and leading worship from the rock band U2 in her article "U2 and Liturgy," from her web site "Grace Notes."