We tried some new things at Calvary with Mt. Zion for Christmas Eve.  You can read below about some of the things we did, and see pictures.  Although the morning service did not have a sermon, the evening service included a sermon that made the same point as the morning service.  You can listen to it here. Also, we used Cards for Worship so that even first time visitors could be part of making worship happen.   The kids were led through a telling of the Christmas story where they acted out different parts.  It was a no-rehearsal, pop-up Christmas Play.  It worked out great.  Also, for our message time, the kid's did an activity you can read about below.  I've included some of the worship parts that were written just for this service, too.  

WELCOME/SHARING THE PEACE
 
  The presiding minister and the congregation greet each other in the peace of the risen Christ.
 
P                   The peace of Christ be with you always. 
C                  And also with you.
 
The people may greet one another with a sign of Christ’s peace and may say:
Peace be with you or similar words. Please ask before offering handshakes or hugs.
 
P   Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world!
C   He is One who comes to bring us life.
P   At this hour of creative birth, we gather to celebrate the great joy of our salvation.
C   With the heavenly host we sing, "Glory to God in the highest heaven."
P   In Christ, God's Word is made flesh and lives among us.
C   With the shepherds, we will tell of the wonders we have seen and heard.
​

THE PRAYER OF THE DAY
P           Dear  Jesus,
C             Thank you for coming into the world today as a little baby.  As we think about what presents we can bring you, help us to know how to share your presents with others. In your name, we pray, and we play, AMEN. 
​

Pastor Jess, along with her friend Jess Davis wrote our Eucharistic Prayer for Disrupt Worship.  You can see it along with the things others wrote here.  If you'd like Jess Davis to help you create things, or to be a paid sensitivity reader for you, you can contact her by sending her a message on facebook.  

​Advent/Christmas/Epiphany Eucharistic Prayer 2017 by Jess Harren and Jess Davis
 
Oh Creator, from the beginning of time you have been with us.
You save us again and again, from ourselves.  From our hatred of others.  From our judgements that we know more than you.
You created us as whole beings, minds, bodies, souls, all together, all connected.
You bring us prophets to point the way, to call us in, to call us toward love and life.
And yet, we turn away.  It is too hard to see.
In the creative darkness, in the beginning of time, the depth of Mary’s womb, you knit together a real human body that comes from another body.  A connected body.  You were a baby.  We hear your cries to eat, to sleep, to be held, to be changed.
In the incarnation, in becoming human, you know what it is to bleed.
To hurt.  To cry out for justice from a body that was tortured.
You know the pain of speaking up against the things that separate. The pain of oppression. Of those who think they get to define who counts as human.
And yet, you gave yourself to us. You gave your own body and blood to heal us, to bring us closer to ourselves, and one another.  To heal the broken connections, within, without, and between our whole beings.  In this meal, you connect your body to ours.  As the story about you is told:
On the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to eat saying, “Take and eat.  This is my body. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
After supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for all people, and for the forgiveness of sin.  Do this for the reembrace of me.”
Through your human and divine body, you bring us salvation.  You also shared your Spirit with us.
Oh Holy Spirit,
Thank you for promising to infuse this wine and bread with the spirit of Jesus.  Saturate the wine and the and the insides of the bread with your spirit.  Use it to unite us to Jesus’ body, and the bodies of all those around us.  Unite everyone who eats of this meal, until, at last we know the joy of connection with all that is around us.  Amen.  

BLESSING
​May God bless you with presence, May Jesus bless you with saving love, and May the Holy Spirit inspire you to share those with others.  
C         Amen.

DISMISSAL
P: Glory to God in the highest!
C: Peace to God’s people on earth!
P: Go in peace. Share the gift of Jesus.
C: Thanks be to God.

This time of year, in the church, and our lives, we are getting ready for Jesus.  We are getting ready to celebrate a tiny baby in a manger, God coming into the world in unexpected ways. 
It is in the vulnerability of the infant that we see God open Herself up to humanity in brand new ways.  Jesus changes everything. 
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Often, congregations work like families.  A group of us have gotten together three times now to think about our family at Calvary.  How do we interact with one another?  How do we define ourselves, while staying part of a community?  What happens when things are not going well between two groups, two people, or leadership?  How do we resolve differences in healthy ways?  For those of you who have been coming, I’ll rely on you to share what you’ve learned with others.  If you haven’t had a chance to come, the first two are posted.  You can read all about what we’re learning and how we’re growing as a congregation by clicking on the two buttons below. ​

​At the end of Workshop Three, we talked about how Bibles that sit on coffee tables and look pretty, but are never opened and read, can’t really change our lives or help us follow Jesus.  Similarly, allowing these workshops to help us grow as a congregation only works as much as we follow through on new behaviors. Those at the workshop asked me to communicate our four goals for the congregation to you.  The plan is that the congregation will work hard on these goals, and we’ll meet again on February 18 after fellowship time.  At that time, we’ll do chapters 11-13 of the book and evaluate how we’re doing with our goals.  I also encourage people to write about their progress --– how things are going; what’s hard about it; how prayer matters in the process; where things went well; where conversations did not go well.  Also, I invited people to share reflections with me on the process. 

​Are you ready?  The goals requested by the workshop participants are on the next page.  They are also posted by the kitchen pass-through so that we can keep them in mind. Don’t worry about getting this all at once.  It’ll take a long time, and this is just a brief overview to get us started and it will let you know that workshop participants (along with others) might be speaking to you differently from now on.  Also, if this is all new and totally overwhelming for you, be sure to read the book if you have it, and ask questions of those who've come to the workshops.  It is ok to just pick one of these goals for you to read and concentrate on for the next month or two.  

In places where people have been worried for a long time it is called chronic anxiety.  In most groups, when the worry is high, like worrying for years about the survival of the congregation, we start to want to blame other people.  Often we think “If that person just would/would not do this/that . . our church would grow fine.”  However, what we have learned is that “I statements” make a world of difference.  They are hard in the moment when we’re not used to them, so just imagine Jesus arguing with his parents, and then try again the next time.  The point is to try to use them and see if they work.

​“I statements” are formatted like this: “I think/feel __________________ when you ___________________________.”  For example, someone reading this might be saying, “I feel uncomfortable when Pastor Jess talks about these goals because I do not want to do them.”  That’s an I statement, and a good and honest one.  

We accomplish this goal in two primary ways.  If someone at church comes to you to complain about someone else, or talk about how someone else needs to change, then the first step is to offer to help them think about how they can go directly to the person they have the problem with.  Saying things like, “If you have a problem with Pr. Jess, you need to go talk directly to Pr. Jess” will really help.  Also, you can ask clarifying questions.  What is she doing you don’t like?  How do you want things to be different?  Let me help you think of how to tell her how you’re feeling about this.  What’s really going on?  How might you need to change the ways you talk to Pastor?  How might you need to hold your boundaries better?  What tools can you use?  It is the job of the person listening to not become part of the relationship triangle, and to help the person talking understand themselves better, and go directly to the person they are struggling with.

The workshop participants have noticed a pattern that often people at church relate to one another through complaining.  While this can be a good way for two people to feel close to one another and on the same page, it can also drag an organization down.  There is a difference between complaining and these preferable things:

• Thinking about how to change the situation
• Defining yourself in the situation, What is your role?
• Thinking about what you have control over
• Venting emotions for a short time so you can move onto more                                      constructive ideas

The workshop participants have many tools for responding when they hear complaining.  Those tools include asking more questions to help people define themselves, putting time limits on how long they are willing to listen, helping people to use “I statements” and other things of this nature.  While it is important to take feelings and stress seriously, it is also important that we do not pass it around so that it gets bigger without any problem solving, processing, or solutions. 

​The group decided that this would be a helpful thing for our congregation to know.  How do we define an argument, verses a discussion?  Is it the emotional intensity?  The use of “I statements”? The ways blame and anxiety get passed around?  The amount of constructive problem solving?  When these two things are confused, often people try to avoid difference all together.  They do not talk about things in open and honest ways, and avoid solving problems all together to avoid an argument breaking out.  This is most likely when an emotional system has low tolerance for people having different needs.  It is possible in some places to say “I don’t like that, that doesn’t work for me, and I am in favor of it because I understand this might be a good way that our community can show Jesus to the world.”  When we know how to have a discussion, and when people have space to define themselves, it actually becomes much easier to move forward as a group toward a common goal.  Although it might look nice on the surface, when people do not define themselves and their position, it is much harder to move forward together.  

​That’s it!  And that’s enough.  This stuff is hard work.  I find much hope in knowing that Jesus was human.  He lived on earth among humans.  There are times he gets into triangles, especially when he offloads his anxiety to God about the disciples not getting that the Good News is about Life for All.  Of course, as we celebrate our very human Baby Jesus this winter, we look forward to knowing that Jesus was also Divine, that God has become human and can redeem humanity.  Jesus will forgive us as many times as it take to work on these goals, with love, compassion, understanding, and guidance.  May we know that the human Jesus is with us in this, and that the Divine Jesus will always forgive us and offer us New Life and the chance to try again.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.