Year A - A Lord's Prayer Series - Sort of

Heads up worship planners!  There is potential for a series or just a bunch of explorations of the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer starting with Proper 17 or 18.  The phrases are not in the order they appear in the Lord’s Prayer and the creators of the Revised Common Lectionary never intended a series here.  Still, there are a lot of connections to the Lord’s Prayer over the coming weeks.  You are less likely to preach a series of sermons on the phrases than to highlight each phrase in a different way during the liturgy each week. 

One way to knit the phrases into a “series” would be to present them as a Lord’s Prayer Treasure Hunt.   Display a copy of the whole prayer, inviting children to find the phrase of the week in each week’s worship.  This could be done during a children’s time that moved each week to the featured part of worship for that week.  There are already detailed suggestions for such connections for many weeks from 2011.  I’ll add some more as I work through those weeks again for 2014.  For now, below is a list of the phrases for the upcoming weeks.

Aug 31           Proper 17 – Hallowed be thy Name

This phrase shows up again in Proper 25.  Since Aug 31 is Labor Day weekend in the US, you may want to start the Lord’s Prayer emphasis with Proper 18.

Sept 7            Proper 18 – Thy Kingdom Come…

Sept 14          Proper 19 – Forgive us…as we forgive others

Sept 21          Proper 20 – Give us this day our daily bread

Sept 28          Proper 21 - Thy Will be Done

Oct 5              Proper 22 –No phrase

Given that it is World Communion Sunday this is probably OK.

Oct 12            Proper 23 – Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil

Oct 19            Proper 24 – Thine is … the glory 

Oct 26            Proper 25 – Hallowed be thy name – if you did not do it on Aug 31.