Worship in Light of the Cross: Meditations for Lent
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About this ebook
How can the cross shed light on what we do in worship and why-not just in the Lenten season but in every season?
John Indermark urges us to focus on the cross, its imprint on how we worship as a community, and how it transforms our discipleship. This 6-week study inspires us to connect corporate worship with our daily lives. He organizes the daily readings according to the components of corporate worship: gathering, invocation, confession, proclamation, creed, response, and sacrament.
- Leader's Guide helps you share this worship experience with your community of faith.
- Daily readings are key in preparing you for worship experiences.
- Each daily reading includes a reflection question or action.
- Includes ideas for creating a weekly worship center to emphasize each week's theme.
John Indermark
John Indermark is a writer and retired U.C.C. minister. He is the author of more than a dozen books, most recently The Greatest of These and Advent A to Z (co-authored with Sharon Harding). John also writes for several curriculum resources, including Feasting on the Word and New International Lesson Annual. John and his wife Judy now spend summers in Washington state and the remainder of the year in Tucson, Arizona.
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Book preview
Worship in Light of the Cross - John Indermark
WORSHIP IN LIGHT OF THE CROSS: MEDITATIONS FOR LENT
Copyright © 2016 by John Indermark
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, write Upper Room Books, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.
Upper Room Books website: books.upperroom.org
Upper Room®, Upper Room Books®, and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.
At the time of publication all website references in this book were valid. However, due to the fluid nature of the Internet some addresses may have changed or the content may not longer be relevant.
Scripture quotations not otherwise identified are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked CEB are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2010 Common English Bible. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Cover: LUCAS Art & Design, Jenison, MI
Cover art: Masterfile Images
Interior design: Perfect Type, Nashville, Tennessee
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Indermark, John, 1950– author.
Title: Worship in light of the cross : meditations for Lent / John Indermark.
Description: Nashville : Upper Room Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005508| ISBN 9780835815727 (print) |
ISBN 9780835815734 (mobi) | ISBN 9780835815741 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Lent—Meditations. | Bible—Meditations.
Classification: LCC BV85 .I454 2016 | DDC 242/.34—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016005508
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Processional
WEEK ONE
Gathering: Forming Community
HOLY WEEK
Sacrament: Recognizing God
Leader’s Guide
Session Outline
Ideas for Each Week
Notes
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments convey a sense of gratitude and indebtedness to others. In terms of how this book has come to be, I am indebted to a great many folks in my recent and distant past—those who have played significant roles in bringing this book to the light of day and to whom great thanks are due. While not exhaustive of all I could name, I want to single out the following individuals:
• Jeannie Crawford-Lee, Acquisitions Editor at Upper Room Books at the time of this project’s approval, whose advocacy made another book with Upper Room Books possible for me;
• Rita Collett, editor at Upper Room Books, who has edited my work for over twenty years and whose labor in every instance made their published form far better than their drafted starts.
Those to whom I am likewise grateful for roles that stretch much farther back in time, for shaping my experience and views of worship and its grounding in the light of the cross:
• Pastor Jesse Pollmann and Rev. Dr. Oscar Rumpf, whose Lenten midweek services at Salvator Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ during my youth and young adulthood shed considerable light on the centrality of the cross not only for worship but discipleship;
• From among my professors at Eden Seminary: Dr. Hale Schroer, who elevated the role of liturgy far beyond pre- and post-sermon filler; and Rev. Robert Tabscott, who insisted that preaching identify where the rubber meets the road
in making clear the biblical witness’s intersection with daily life and societal concerns no matter the cost;
• Metaline Falls United Church of Christ, my first parish, that gave me the freedom and privilege to lead worship, make the mistakes novices inevitably make, and steadfastly return to gather each Sunday with a pastor who was still finding his way and voice.
• And to Judy, my wife and companion and sometimes editor, whose own love of liturgy traces like mine to our common background in the Evangelical and Reformed tradition that even now shapes where we find ourselves on Sunday mornings and midweek in Lent.
FOREWORD
Many Christians and churches observe Lent with special services (Ash Wednesday, midweek, Holy Week) and/or a Sunday worship series. These liturgical experiences often focus in theme or scriptural text on Jesus’ cross. The question is, do we simply make Lent fit into liturgical structures that remain unaffected by what looms before Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem? Or does the journey recalled in Lent’s movement toward the cross impact and transform worship and its varied components? In other words, how can the cross shed light on what we do in worship and why—not just in this season but in every season?
Worship in Light of the Cross has two underlying purposes as a devotional resource for individuals and communities. First, this book aims to link the Lenten journey before you with worship that is