Tools for tomorrow
Past, present & future
Ideas for worship for One World Week Preparation:
You will need: map of your country displayed on a board where it can be seen, pins or some mechanism for marking it visibly, copies of the One World Week poster.
Call to worship:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God Psalm 90:1-2. NRSV Hymn: e.g. HP 56 – Praise to the living God
Holy Trinity, forever one, Whose nature is community; Source of all sharing, In whom we love, and meet, and know our neighbour: Life in all its fullness, making all things new: We praise and adore you. Brian Wren
Prayer of confession
All: God, you know us as we are you know our selfishness, our anger and bitterness, our fear and our apathy our hardness of heart, our deliberate blindness, our need to begin again. In your mercy and love,
Prayer of adoration
Living Love, Beginning and end, Giver of food and drink, Clothing and warmth, Love and hope: Life in all its goodness – We praise and adore you. Jesus, wisdom and word: Lover of outcasts, Friend of the poor; One of us yet one with God; Crucified and risen: Life in the midst of death – We praise and adore you. Holy Spirit, storm and breath of love; Bridge-builder, eye-opener, Waker of the oppressed, Unseen and unexpected, Untameable energy of life – We praise and adore you.
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Leader:
All: Forgive us, change and renew us. Women included: The St Hilda Community
Introduction to the theme
The One World Week theme is ‘Re-forming our Futures.’ We all have dreams and ideas and hopes about what the future will be. But the future depends on how we live in the present, just as our present is the product of our past. So, in this service we are going to think about past, present and future. Display the One World Week poster and read all together the words on it: ‘The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made. The making of those pathways changes both the maker and the destination.’ Reading: Luke 6: 43–49
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Tools for tomorrow
Hymn: O Christ the same, through all our story’s pages our loves and hopes, our failures and our fears; eternal Lord, the king of all the ages, unchanging still amid the passing years: O living Word, the source of all creation, who spread the skies and set the stars ablaze; O Christ the same, who wrought our whole salvation: we bring our thanks for all our yesterdays. O Christ the same, the friend of sinners, sharing our inmost thoughts, the secrets none can hide; still as of old upon your body bearing the marks of love, in triumph glorified: O Son of Man, who stopped for us from heaven – O Prince of life, in all your saving power; O Christ the same, to whom our hearts are given: we bring our thanks for this the present hour. O Christ the same, secure within whose keeping our lives and loves, our days and years remain; our work and rest, our waking and our sleeping, our calm and storm, our pleasure and our pain: O Lord of love, for all our joys and sorrows, for all our hopes, when earth shall fade and flee; O Christ the same, beyond our brief tomorrows: we bring our thanks for all that is to be. Timothy Dudley Smith Suggested tune: Londonderry Air Or, if children are present you could use the action song ‘The wise man built his house upon the rock’.
most closely to your own life? Where do you see yourself on the pathway? Share your thoughts with the person sitting next to you.
3: The future
Ask those present to write down one thing they would change about themselves, and one thing they would like to change in the world. Help each other to do this. Invite them to share these dreams with others, if they choose to. What we can do to help these dreams come true? Encourage people to speak about examples of working for change – e.g. the Jubilee Coalition against debt, the Clean Slate Campaign or some issue in your locality. Prayer: (all together) God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. (Niebuhr) e.g. HP 769, God is working his purpose out or 784, Thy hand O God has guided
Hymn:
Prayers of Intercession
Pray for people who lack a secure foundation – those without food, shelter, family, for those who have lost their foundation though broken relationships or redundancy at work, those who have become refugees or who are seeking political asylum for people who have no memory of the past such as those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease those who are having to live today with memories of a difficult past or past mistakes for those experiencing challenges and stress in their present day lives for those who fear what the future holds for those dedicated to ‘re-forming our futures’, those working for peace, justice and a better life for children born into poverty, violence and war Invite people to contribute their own prayers about the past, the present or the future. Hymn: Blessing MRDF has edited a worship anthology for One World Week, packed full of ideas for services, meditation and Bible study. Contact Caro Ayres at 1, Central Buildings, Westminster, London, SW1H 9NH. Tel: 0171 222 8010 for a copy (cost £1) For the 1999 OWW Action Kit (£5.50) contact OWW, PO Box 2555, Reading, RG1 4XW, 0118 939 4933. This service has been adapted from the OWW Resource Book from material compiled by Caro Ayres.
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1: The past
The past can provide a strong foundation, a sense of identity and self-worth. What are our foundations? Who have given us the fundamentals of our faith? Share with your neighbour your thoughts about those people who have played an important part in your past, - parents, grandparents, teachers – those who have helped make us what we are. Let’s acknowledge their importance in our lives. Places too may have been important in our past – home, school, church. Use the displayed map to show where people have come from. Ask them to stick pins in it to show where they first went to church. The wise man built his house on firm foundations. These are the foundations of our church today! We can celebrate this inheritance. Hymn: e.g. HP 566 – Now thank we all our God
e.g. HP 804 The church of Christ in every age
2: The present
What do you spend most of your time doing? (At school, at work, at home, perhaps on your own?) What do you enjoy doing most? Take time to look at the One World Week Poster. Which character or symbol relates
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