Writing about Universalist Christianity and improving how churches work
Another request. I’m looking for lovely samples of orders of service. Necessarily available in a downloadable format online, and preferably from a small church (of whatever stripe) or one that works with a tight budget. Feel free to chime in, even years from now. There’s something dispiriting to visit a church and find something that …
Twenty years ago, on the nineteeth of September, the Canon Universalist Church ordained me to the Ministry of the Gospel. I’m feeling a little nostalgic about it. Here is the order of service; I made it into a web page which I think was still something of a novelty back then. The file has remained …
Continue reading “Looking back on my ordination order of service”
It’s not the most important thing in the world, but churches could do a better job with printed orders of service, which is keenly felt on Christmas Eve, when churches often get their largest congregations all year. I’ve written about this over the years, and I’m far from convinced that that the two- or three-column …
Continue reading “A “what I’d like” for order of service design”
Time again to point out the Open Hymnal Project, which has a special PDF booklet of public domain Christmas hymns, (direct link) and a ZIP (archive) file GIF (image) files of individual files that should make it easier for you to put individual hymns in an order of service, downloadable from the main page. See …
Continue reading “Need a Christmas hymn for your order of service? A song book?”
So, before I break this apart, I want to show you an old order of service from the defunct Church of the Messiah (Universalist) in Philadelphia. (I wrote about Messiah Home, it’s former retirement home here.) Thanks to friend and Unitarian Universalist minister Hank Peirce for photo of the original text. UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF …
Continue reading “Deconstructing the Messiah church order of service: the text”
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a set of nicely-formatted orders of service/bulletins from First Church (Unitarian), Boston, that I found in the archives at the Andover-Harvard library. They were preserved in a file about coordinated opposition to the consolidation of the Unitarians and the Universalists because the minister’s message in them. But I recognized …
Continue reading “So, here's that clever order of service I described”
My day at the Andover-Harvard Library archives was running out, so I wanted to see what I could as quickly as possible, including the files related to an ad hoc organization opposed to the creation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, from a minority of Universalists and Unitarians alike. One of the opposing Unitarian churches was …
Continue reading “Archives search: a nicely laid-out order of service”
In one step, from the medieval to Modernism. The Western Conference Unitarians — think of the middle third of the United States a hundred and more years ago — were known for a kind of bibical rationalism and a minimalist style of worship sometimes known as “fiddle and lecture”. And I’ve been looking for some …
A little Google-noodling lead me to this order of service from Universalist National Memorial Church in 1939. Yes, the service is on one leaf — very different than the norm (in most any church) today. Indeed, an outline pasted in the hymnal hymns and readings on the hynmboards, and announcements from the lectern would produce …
Continue reading “An old order of service at the old church”
Still haven’t found the Labour Church hymnal, but did find this article with more background and an outline order of service. Also, this book excerpt that notes some of its contents.