New Year’s Day Worship
Themes
There are several New Year’s
themes that run through all today’s texts: time, God’s powerful presence in the
world, the ability to change, and hope.
Children can explore all these themes.
% Time feels different to children who have known so little
of it. For them years last forever. They are just beginning to sort out the
difference between how long a time period feels and the fact that an hour is
always 60 minutes long no matter how it feels.
Before
singing “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”
take time to review the words of one or all of the verses.
Start
with verse 3 “a thousand ages in thy sight” putting it into your own
words. Point out that when you have
lived long enough to celebrate only 6 Christmases, it seems a long time between
Christmases. But, when you have lived
long enough to experience 86 Christmases, the time between Christmases seems to
fly by. It is strange (especially if you
are 6) but very true. Then, read the
first lines of this verse and ponder the possibility that not a thousand
Christmases but a thousand ages (hundreds of thousands of Christmases) are like
one evening to God.
Verse
2 says that God (for whom a 100 ages is an evening) is with us at all
times. You might want to connect to the
alpha and omega symbols in paraments, windows, or furnishings in the sanctuary.
Verse
1 is both the introduction and the summary.
I’d start with other verses, then return to God as our “hope” and “home”
in all times.
I’d
focus on the first 3 verses with the children.
The adults will get the last two on their own and the children will grow
into them.
% Change is possible. We can never be totally stuck. God gives us
unlimited fresh starts. Actually
children will quickly point out that there are some things they cannot change,
e.g. their size, their athletic or musical ability (or lack of it),the family
they live in, whether they have enough money for what they need and want. Acknowledge this and help identify what we
can and cannot change. Only then, talk
about New Year’s Day as a good day to identify one change you can make, want to
make, and will work on making. Warn that
change is not easy. We have to expect to
mess up and not quit when it gets hard.
We are not like toy transformers that change in a flick of a few
levers. Change takes time and work.
Invite
worshipers of all ages to write one
change they would like to make during the new year on a slip of paper (maybe some space left at the bottom of the
printed order of worship) and to put it in the offering plate as a gift to
God. In the offertory prayer mention
this gifts of commitments to changes.
St.
Benedict, who founded the Benedictine order of monks, pointed out that every
day (as well as every year) we get a fresh start. Introduce the discipline of bedtime prayer as a good way to remember
this. Individuals or families think
back over their day and identify things they want to tell God about the
day. With children identify the things
for which we want to say “thanks” and the things about which we need to say
“Help”. Together tell God about these
things in prayers. (At first parents
will have to voice the prayers, but soon older children can take turns voicing
the prayers.) Many parents end this by
drawing a cross with their finger on each child’s forehead as they say,
“Remember, God loves you and I love you ALWAYS.” (On the radio this morning I heard an expert
on insomnia touting very similar bedtime practices in which adults let go of
the day and settle in to sleep.)
% The epiphany theme “Arise,
Shine” resonates with
children as they return to school in a new year. Especially if you need to combine New Year’s
and Epiphany themes go to Epiphany Year A for ideas.
% The response to all these themes is hope for the new
year – and all of the future. Sing the Argentine “Canto de Esperanza” (Song of Hope)
which appears in many recent denominational hymnals. It is a prayer for the new year that could be
sung at the benediction. If it is new to
the congregation, read through the words before singing it. Because it is short, it can be sung two or
three times and guarantee that worshippers will be humming it all day.
Doors Are BIG on New Year’s Day
% Doors are good images for New Years Day. We have closed the door on the last year and
opened the door to a new door. When you
walk through a door things change. When
you go from outside to inside, you use a quieter voice, you wipe off (even take
off) your shoes, you expect to do different things. Walking through doors tells us where we are
and who we are. There are several ways
to use doors in worship on New Year’s Day.
Borrow
the Chalking the Door ritual which is
associated with Epiphany but fits nicely on New Year’s Day too. It is
basically a house blessing. Using chalk,
members of the congregation or household write on the door frame the year’s
date and the letters C, B, and M (the initials of the three wise men). Prayer is then offered asking that the door
welcome many visitors during the coming year and that all who come through the
doorway be blessed. Write on the church
doors during the worship service with the prayers for all who will come through
the doors this year (worshipers, brides and grooms, parents bringing babies to
be baptized, families and friends coming to bury their dead, members of
community groups which will use the facilities,….). Then encourage households to repeat it in
their own homes. Print a simple blessing
for use at both church and home in the order of worship and give out small
pieces of white chalk for home use.
Below is a sample blessing.
God
of doors and homes, bless this home this year and every year.
Bless
all who come and go through this door, both those who live here and those who
visit.
May
all who enter through this door come in peace and bring joy.
May
all who come to this door find welcome and love.
May
the love and joy in this home overflow and spread into the community and the
world.
If
your congregation decorates the doors with blue streamers
on baptismal days, hang those streamers today. Point out that every time we walk through
those streamers we not only celebrate the baptism of that day, but recall our
own baptism and the fact that God loves us and forgives. God gives us a endless new starts, a new
start every day, and a new year today. If
you do not plan to do it on The Baptism of the Lord Sunday, do a remembering of
our baptisms service today.
Check
out the Judgment Doors in the
section on the gospel text for the day.
The New Year’s Day Texts
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
% To children Ecclesiastes says that life is full of all
sorts of things and that all of them are good (in the sense of blessed). Help the children catch the significance of
the 14 rather general pairs of opposites by exploring several for them.
Vs 2 We all are born and we all die. Birth and death are simply part of God’s plan
for our lives.
Vs.
2b There are seasons. We can’t plant seeds during the winter or
harvest them in the spring.
Vs.
6b There are times we need to save things
carefully - like putting aside clothes to wear again. There are other times when we need to let
things go - like giving away old clothes or toys we have outgrown. Sometimes it is hard to know which time it
is.
Vs.
7b There is a time to keep silent and a
time to speak. Children are quick to
list examples of these times.
Vs 4 (I’d save this verse for last even though it
comes earlier in the list.) There are
times when life is sad and we cry. There
are other times when life is so happy that we laugh a lot. Both of these times are good, blessed
times. We may prefer the happy, laughing
times. But, God is with us in both happy
and sad times.
% The Secret of Saying Thanks,
by Douglas Wood, says to children what The Preacher says in verses 9-13. The secret is that it is impossible to feel
thankful and unhappy at the same time.
Indeed,
The
more we say thanks, the more we find to be thankful for.
And
the more we find to be thankful for, the happier we become.
This is one of those
children’s books that could be read at the conclusion of the sermon to sum it
all up. It could also be read with the
children up front , sitting behind you so they can see the pictures over your
shoulders. Or, it could be read to the
whole congregation having encouraged them to close their eyes and imagine each
scene you read.
Psalm 8
% Read from Today’s English Version
which uses vocabulary children understand more readily – “Lord” instead of
“Sovereign,” “greatness” instead of “majesty,” and the moon and stars that you
“made” rather than “established.” Most
adults will not notice the difference, but the children will.
Revelation 21:1-6a
% I do recall some years that began with a sense of
promise for the world. But, often we
begin a new year with a sense of foreboding.
The children sense that even when they do not understand the details of
that year’s fears. The writer of
Revelation insists that we need not worry about these things that make us feel
like the world is about to end. For one
thing, only God knows when the world will end.
For another thing, the all powerful God who loves us is in control and
moving all of history toward a good end.
Check the worship themes at the beginning of this post for ideas
highlighting the alpha and omega, judgment doors in European cathedrals, and a
song of Hope with which to celebrate the fact that we can face the future
without fear.
Matthew 25:31-46
 |
| Last Judgment, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=29327 [retrieved November 11, 2013].Add caption |
% Medieval European Cathedrals made all the doors into
the sanctuary Last Judgment Doors which
illustrate this text. Usually there was
a stone figure of Christ the Judge over the door. Often under him there were layers of figures
with the saintly sheep on one side and the evil goats on the other. Curved around these figures and the doors
were gathered angels and biblical characters in worship. Show pictures of these doors and imagine
walking through them every week to worship.
If there are any special features of the entrances to your sanctuary,
point them out and explain what it means to walk past/through them as you enter
worship. For example, many doors feature
a cross. So, say what it means to come
through this sign of God’s love and forgiveness into worship every week.
% Where Love Is There God is Also, by Leo Tolstoy, is a short story about a cobbler who
hears Jesus promise to visit him the next day.
He is excited, but disappointed when the only visitors he gets are an
elderly poor man shoveling snow who he invited in for tea, a young mother and
infant to whom he gave his coat, and a boy who has been caught taking an apple
from a seller. That night Jesus reveals
that he was with each of those people.
This story is presented for children in several DVD/Videos and
books. It may be titled The
Shoemaker’s Dream or Martin the Cobbler. It may be found in some public libraries. It is often listed as a Christmas item in
libraries or stores.
