RoboPreacher

just let yourself, give into the flood-tide (Go do!) what we’re doing For the next four posts I will be working through the four basic parts of a service (Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending). The idea is to mine the resources available about each part of the service and ask relevant questions. And as I said last week, much of the formal material isn’t that helpful… a ritual within a ritual That being said, the sending, or propelling, is the end of the service. After God’s people have gotten together, read a little and noshed, it’s time to go. They’re thrust through the thresholds into the world. There should be a momentum to this propelling. The reason the sending is a specific ritual is because as these people are going, they find they’ve been changed. As with all liminal moments in life, a ritual is appropriate. The sending, then, is a specific ritual that is located at the end of the larger ritual of worship. The sending requires a ritual because after the s...

Part I: Contextual Theological Reflection: Ministry Context: Folk musician, Josh Ritter, described the West as a story we made up to erase. In other words, the frontier, or the West, is a destination, not a stop on a journey somewhere else. If an urban dweller were to go to the frontier of the continental United States, Seattle is the largest city one could go that is westernmost and northernmost. This pioneer sentimentality manifests itself in a number of ways in Seattle. For instance, individualism and autonomy are highly valued. These values show up in atypical living arrangements that, while atypical nationwide, are more common in Seattle. For instance, Seattle has among the highest rates of people living alone or unrelated people living together, as well as the smallest average family sizes in the nation. Given that Seattle is a destination, it is the geographically mobile who dwell in the Emerald City. So, paradoxically, while a sense of individuality dr...