New websites

This “La Peregrina” website — started in 2010! — is no longer updated.

You can now find me at www.dianekenaston.com and www.goodfridaycollaborative.com.

May your pilgrimage always continue… 

The Jesse Tree: An Interactive Worship Service based on Matthew 1:1-17

This week was supposed to be an “easy” week — a week off from the hard work of worship preparation, a week to relax (during Advent – HA!) and let the Children’s Christmas program do all the work — at least at the first church.  I figured I would muddle my way through with the second church on the charge.  But then I got inspired…

We need to tell and re-tell our stories. In Atlanta, a local Lutheran church celebrated an Easter vigil each year in which they shared the narratives of faith through drama, art, music, and story-telling… what a vision of God they shared!  And yet so many Christians–even adult Christians–do not know the stories of our faith.  There were two kingdoms, Israel and Judah?  God made a promise to David?  Who was King Josiah?  Isaiah wasn’t talking about Jesus?  Why were there two temples?

Inspired by Matthew 1:1-17, I put together a worship service for Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (order of worship below).  During our adult Bible study on Wednesday, we made fourteen circle ornaments, fourteen crown ornaments, and fourteen star ornaments.  We put on them the names of the ancestors of Jesus (according to Matthew).  We will hand out all of the ornaments at the beginning of the service (there are usually twenty people in worship, so each person will receive two).  During the reading of Matthew 1:1-17, when people hear their name read, they will go forward and hang the ornament on the Christmas tree/Jesse Tree.

(We used this public domain picture from Wikimedia Commons on the front of the bulletin, along with this description:  THE STORY OF THE JESSE TREE – During the Middle Ages, Christians created art to communicate our faith stories.  One of the pictures they created used Isaiah 11:1: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” the father of King David. Jesse is usually shown asleep at the bottom of the picture (like a tree stump), with a branch growing out of him to show the Biblical characters who were ancestors of Jesus. Many of them have crowns on their heads because they were kings.  At the top of the tree is Mary holding Jesus, the flower from Jesse’s tree).

At certain points in the genealogy, I’ll say, “Now let me tell you the story of [insert name here]…”  Using Ralph Milton’s excellent The Family Story Bible as a guide, I am re-telling and condensing seven key stories in Israel’s history.  Milton’s stories cover only half of the ones I want to tell, and they’re each double the the length of what I want — but the example of how to boil a story down to its essentials and yet add details enough to be interesting is a huge gift of Milton.  My goal is 200 words to each of the seven stories… that word count is hard enough, but not as hard as narrowing the number of stories to seven!  I’d love to do this service again and use some of the other stories from Matthew’s genealogy (Jacob, Rahab, Solomon, and Josiah top that list of “if only we had time”).

• Purpose #1: to increase Biblical literacy by reviewing Biblical history prior to the birth of Christ
• Purpose #2: to engage people of all ages, particularly children, in worship (since the other church is doing a Christmas pageant)
• Purpose #3: to learn the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Although the church I serve has a tradition of lighting an Advent wreath, we did not know any Advent hymns prior to this year.  The new hymns we are learning this year are “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Prepare the Way of the Lord.”  We’ve sung both of them (my original plan with “O Come” was to do two verses a week), but this service has the secondary goal of reinforcing theses hymns and illustrating some of the Biblical references in the lyrics (e.g., “What is exile?”).

Third Sunday of Advent: Rejoice!

An Interactive Worship Service based on Matthew 1

December 11, 2011

GATHERING TOGETHER

*Lighting of Candles on the Altar
Greeting & Announcements
*Hymn #207…..……….“Prepare the Way of the Lord”
*Passing the Peace
Prayers of the People – After each prayer, please pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.” 
We Give God Our Tithes & Offerings
*Doxology #236: “While Shepherds Watched” (v.6) – “All glory be to God on high, and to the earth be peace; good will hence-forth from heaven to earth begin and never cease, begin and never cease”

 CREATING THE JESSE TREE

Matthew 1:1-17 (see insert – Matthew 1:1-17 in the New International Reader’s Version)
All are invited to say, “was the father of”

The Story of Abraham and Sarah – based on Genesis 12:1-9; 13:14-18; 17-18:19; 21:1-7
Hymn #211           …“O Come, Desire of Nations” (verse 7)

The Story of Nahshon, Aaron, and Moses – based on Exodus and Numbers 1:1-16, 2:1-9, 7:1-17
Hymn #211           ……“O Come, Great Lord of Might” (v. 3)

The Story of Ruth and Naomi – based on Ruth 1-4
Hymn #211           …………“O Come, Thou Dayspring” (v. 6)

The Story of Jesse’s Children – based on 1 Samuel 16:1-13 and 2 Samuel 7
Hymn #211…..…“O Come, Thou Key of David” (v. 5)

The Story of King Manasseh and King Jeconiah –  based on 2 Kings 21:1-18, 24:8-16, 25:27-30
Hymn #211           ……“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (v. 1)

The Story of Zerubbabel – based on Ezra 1:1-3, 2:1-2, 3:2-13; Haggai 1:1, 14; 2:4-5, 21-23; Zechariah 4:6-10
Hymn #211…..…..……“O Come, Thou Wisdom” (v. 2)

The Story of Joseph and Mary – based on Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38
Hymn #211..……“O Come, Thou Root of Jesse” (v. 4)

LIGHTING THE ADVENT CANDLES

There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David …
Lighting the 1^st Candle (Purple, for royalty)

There were fourteen generations from David until the Jewish people were forced to go away in exile to Babylon….
Lighting the 2^nd Candle (Purple, for royalty)

And there were fourteen generations from that time to the Messiah, the Christ…
Lighting the 3^rd Candle (Pink, for “Rejoice!”)

LEAVING TO SHARE GOD’ S STORY

*Hymn #207………….“Prepare the Way of the Lord”

*Benediction

If you use this or adapt this in your own setting, please let me know through comments or e-mail!
I would love feedback!

The Jesse Tree: An Interactive Worship Service Based on Matthew 1:1-17 by Diane Kenaston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

We’re Traveling on a Road We’ve Never Seen Before

This blog records my journey through seminary (a “pilgrimage” or “peregrinaje,” if you will).  This song by Dorie Ellzey Blesoff is my soundtrack as I go:

We are gathered here together in the presence of the Spirit,
the Spirit that keeps breaking in our lives.
We don’t have all the answers, but we sure do have the questions.
We know that to create is to survive.

We’re traveling on a road we’ve never seen before,
and, oh, it’s hard to know which way to go.
But somewhere there’s a promise ‘bout distant shore
that those who seek will someday know.

We are gathered here together with our dusty feet and bodies.
We’re tired and sore and restless and we don’t know how we feel.
Well, we wash each other’s sandals and anoint our heads with water,
and somewhere in the pain there is a place that starts to heal.

We’re traveling on a road we’ve never seen before,
and, oh, it’s hard to know which way to go.
But somewhere there’s a promise ‘bout distant shore
that those who seek will someday know.  

We are gathered here together; we are strangers in a strange land.
Nomads in the desert, we are exiles meant to roam.
We have left the past behind us and the ones who call us children.
We’re searching out a new frontier, a place to call our own.

We’re traveling on a road we’ve never seen before,
and, oh, it’s hard to know which way to go.
But somewhere there’s a promise ‘bout distant shore
that those who seek will someday know.  

We are gathered here together just to celebrate the union,
the coming together of our souls in time and space.
Well, we know God’s reign is coming and we know it won’t come easy,
but still we trust our vision of the smile on Future’s face.

 We’re traveling on a road we’ve never seen before,
and, oh, it’s hard to know which way to go.
But somewhere there’s a promise ‘bout distant shore
that those who seek will someday know.

— Doris Ellzey Blesoff, “We Are Gathered”

La Peregrina (“The Pilgrim”)