Would you like to lead a follow-up conversation about what you heard and experienced at the 2018 National Gathering? Gather with folks in your area, either in person or virtually, and use this facilitator guide to help lead your conversations.
One: Spirit that lives among us:
All: We see life here in our testimonies, in our tensions, and in this community.
One: Spirit that walks us through death:
All: We are aware of the deaths we experience, the grief we carry, and the pain we bear.
One: Spirit that burns as we rise:
All: We desire to resurrect, to restore, to reconcile; to rise into your call.
One: Spirit that teaches us as we live again:
All: As we worship together, let us live into the new creation that God calls us to be.
Left: We stand in the desert and are consumed with the death that surrounds us
All: Creator let the new life begin
Right: We trust our own abilities and language to breathe newness into desolation
All: Creator let the new life begin
Center: We are parched and thirsty when speaking your truth
All: Creator let the new life begin
Left: We notice people linking arms in the streets
All: Creator let the new life break forth
Right: We feel communal laments of injustice
All: Creator let the new life break forth
Center: We experience the tension of a kindom that is not yours
All: Creator let the new life break forth
Left: We long for unity over oppressive systems
All: Creator let the new life blossom
Right: We yearn for connections that come with vulnerability
All: Creator let the new life blossom
Center: We crave courage to break through our deserts of fear
All: Creator let the new life blossom
The desert is not dead:
Even the sand and dust of our lives
Give testimony to God’s abounding grace and healing,
Revealed in our living, dying, rising, and new life.
God takes all we have
In the desert times of our lives
And leads us into new vistas,
With vision, songs of joy, wellsprings of water.
And now, we invite you desert-wanderers
To live into this proclamation of grace,
By sharing the peace that Christ shares with us,
Stepping out of your contexts and comfort zones.
As you are able, please move to a new place in this room,
Staying there for the rest of the service,
And sharing the peace of Christ along the way.
The Peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
Voice 1:The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.
Voice 2:The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.
V1:Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
V2: “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. God will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. God will come and save you.”
V1:Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
V2:For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
V1: A highway shall be there,
V2:and it shall be called the Holy Way;
V1:the unclean shall not travel on it,
V2:but it shall be for God’s people;
V1:no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
V2:No lion shall be there,
V1:nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
V2: they shall not be found there,
V1:but the redeemed shall walk there.
ALL: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
V1:and come to Zion with singing;
All: everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
V2: they shall obtain joy and gladness,
All:and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Come to this table,
You who have walked through the wilderness and dwelt in the deserted places-
Have you been fed?
Come to this table,
You who have seen the first signs of spring and have been longing for the blossom to break forth-
Have you been fed?
Come to Christ’s table.
Rise and bloom in the wilderness.
May the Creator of the Holy Way be with you.
And also with you.
Do not be afraid, people of God, but lift your hearts to the holy One.
Our hearts will be filled with God’s hope and grace.
Children of God, offer songs of goodness to the One who keeps faith forever.
We offer glad praises to the One who comes with justice.
You carved a holy way
through chaos, Creating God,
rejoicing with Word and Spirit as
The waters of creation
Burst forth to form rivers where there had been only dry land.
Those same waters continue to give us life in all its beauty and biodiversity.
Despite these gracious gifts we continually turned away from you.
Patiently, you sent prophets to us,
who urged us over and again to return.
Holiness is the path you walk, Gracious God,
and, in your mercy, you sent your Child, Jesus,
To bring justice for all people,
To lead us along the path of redemption.
He gives us vision where we cannot see,
Ears to hear what we do not want to hear.
When we are worry, world, and work weary,
he comes to strengthen our feeble knees,
And put to work our weak hands.
Truth be told, there are lots of deserts in our lives,
Places that are dying or already dead.
We know the pain—and so do those around us—
of keeping up the facade;
Spring up in us like blossoms in the desert,
Put us to leaping, give to our voice songs we have not sung in a long time.
Put us back on the holy way that leads to everlasting joy.
Come to us in our silent contemplation
As we prepare our hearts to receive this spiritual food
Silence
Gather your people now,
and lead us along the holy way to the Table
where the Spirit anoints the bread and the cup
and blesses all who have come for this feast.
Members of Turnaround Tuesday, a campaign of Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development, give a testimony presentation at the NEXT Church National Gathering in Baltimore.
Turnaround Tuesday was born of the engagement of BUILD member churches with their communities and has grown into a jobs movement that is making a unique and powerful contribution to the fight against recidivism and for neighborhood revitalization in Baltimore City. Sponsored by BUILD, Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development, a broad-based community power organization, Turnaround Tuesday has connected 366 people to employment with living wages and high retention rates in 2.5 years. Turnaround Tuesday’s community-based, open door approach makes it uniquely accessible to jobseekers experiencing any barriers to employment, and it works especially hard to attract and employ returning citizens. A combination of intensive relationship building with participants and employers including the delivery of essential skills, leadership development, and issue organizing experiences has made Turnaround Tuesday into one of Baltimore’s most respected jobs pipelines.
Dr. Betsy Nix and Dr. Sheri Parks collaborate on a testimony to the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering in Baltimore, MD, about race in the city.
Elizabeth Nix (Betsy) is an associate professor of history and the chair of the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies at the University of Baltimore. Sheri Parks is the associate dean for research, interdisciplinary scholarship, and programming for the College of Arts and Humanities, and an associate professor of American studies at hte University of Maryland.
Jonathan Walton, social ethicist and scholar of American religions, gives a keynote presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering in Baltimore.
Walton joined the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in July 2010 and was appointed Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in Harvard’s Memorial Church in 2012.
Formerly an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California, Riverside, Professor Walton’s research addresses the intersections of religion, politics, and media culture. He is the author of Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism. He has also published widely in scholarly journals such as Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation and Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. His work and insights have also been featured in several national and international news outlets including the New York Times, CNN, and the BBC.
Walton earned his PhD in Religion & Society and MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. He also holds a BA in Political Science from Morehouse College in Atlanta. He serves on several professional boards and committees, which include the Board of Trustees at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the National Advisory Board of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Workshop: Keep Your Eyes on the Road: Staying Focused on Core Mission
Presenters: Mark Elsdon
Attached you will find the worksheet from Mark Elsdon’s workshop “Keep Your Eyes on the Road: Staying Focused on Core Mission.”
Workshop description: There are countless good ideas out there, infinite causes worth supporting, and endless options for how to spend energy, time, and money. But many of these ideas are distractions from the real direction you and your organization are headed. Staying focused on your core mission is key to success. This session will explore the importance of remaining focused on core mission, and provide practical tools for saying “yes” to the right things and “no” to everything else.
Jennifer Barchi, pastor of Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, preaches at the 2018 National Gathering in Baltimore. The theme for this service: rising.
Jennifer Barchi serves as the solo pastor of Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church on the west side of Baltimore City, MD, where she focuses on redevelopment and reconciliation, and is the author of The Joy Thieves. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and Stanford University, she has served congregations in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Groomsport, Northern Ireland. She loves writing, hiking, hanging from the ceiling on aerial silks, and just about anything that involves creativity. Jennifer currently lives in west Baltimore with her wife, Lauren, and their dog, Cinnamon.
The liturgy for the service follows.
Voice One:Sometimes dying remains. It overwhelms us and then persists with stubbornness. This death is a wound that never fully closes, a wound that stays raw even as it grows old. This is the death we must learn to be with, beside, among, that we must learn how to witness as it seeps out from the safety of its boundaries and bandages. This is the dying that didn’t kill us but came so close that we can still taste it on the back of our tongues, hear it echo in memories behind our thoughts, feel it creak in our bones. Sometimes dying remains.
Voice Two: And sometimes dying is rising. Sometimes dying sparks a new thing, becomes possibility, potential, the fallow ground where new life slowly takes root, unfurls, grows wild. This is the death that we encounter in the parched, desert landscape that erupts with blossoms of magenta and yellow and crimson. This is the death that resides in the musty tomb where the Holy Spirit begins to breathe in the darkness. This is the death that razed our internal landscapes, bringing down our carefully constructed walls and disrupting our well-laid plans, but which offered us the opportunity to build something new, something we wouldn’t have otherwise imagined. Sometimes dying is rising.
All: Sometimes dying remains, and we carry it with us. Sometimes dying is rising, and we rejoice in the abundance of new life. We bring all of our experiences of dying into this community, and we watch for and bear witness to the God of resurrection.
Hymn: In the Bulb There Is A Flower
Confession is the holy practice of telling the truth. In confession, we tell God the truth about our lives, the truth about our world, the truth about our churches. This evening we focus on what is true for us about death and resurrection. Our prayer tonight will be spoken and shared. For each question we invite you to share your answer with someone(s) sitting near you. At the end we’ll sing the Kyrie together.
The Act of Confession
What feels dead in the Church, in the denomination, or in your life?
What is killing the Church, the denomination, or you? Do you want to let go of it?
What in the Church, in the denomination, or in our world is killing you?
Where do you long for resurrection? Where do you resist it?
Music: Lord Have Mercy
One: In life and in death and in resurrection, we belong to God. This is true:
All: We are claimed by God’s love long before we even have language to claim God ourselves.
One: This is true:
All: Christ walks with us, even in death.
One: This is true:
All: The Spirit dwells within us, offering the light of peace in the fog of fear and hatred and violence.
One: This is true:
All: We are part of a community that mourns together in death, rejoices in new life, and hopes in the promise that God is making all things new. Amen!
Isaiah 34:9-17
Silence
Isaiah 35:1-10
Hymn: Now The Green Blade Rises
Voice 1: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Heeding the word of Jesus, and confident in his promise of new life, we baptize those whom God has called. In baptism God claims us, and seals us to show that we belong to God.
God frees us from the fear of death, uniting us with Jesus Christ in his dying and rising. By water and the Holy Spirit, we are made members of a community, the body of Christ, and joined to Christ’s ministry of disruption, reconciliation, and transformation. In baptism, we proclaim that “to be a Christian is to be continuously undone and remade by a Savior who encounters us in ways we might not expect, through a collection of people we might otherwise reject, screen, or censor.” As we remember our own baptism, let us turn from the fear of dying, and embrace the Spirit of possibility with joy.
Voice 2: Together as one body let us reaffirm the promises made in our baptism.
One: Trusting in the God of new life, do you turn from fear and its tyranny in our communities?
All: We do.
One: Do you turn to Jesus Christ, the wounded and resurrected one, trusting in his presence and power in a world haunted by death?
All: We do.
One: Will you witness to the wild movement of the Spirit as she breathes the hope of rising into landscapes that appear to be dying?
All: We will, with God’s help.
One: Let us each remember our baptism and be glad.
You are invited to move to the nearest altar/memorial, remember your baptism, and bear witness to the promise of the resurrection.
Sometimes our prayers fall beyond the reach of language. This evening, our prayer will be made up of images that stirred a sense of resurrection, of dying and rising, for those who submitted them. As you watch the pictures on the screen, we invite you to pray for those who are experiencing dying and rising in our communities, in our churches, in our nation, and in our world.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our God who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Workshop: Creating a Culture of Generosity
Presenters: Robert Hay Jr.
Attached you will find the powerpoint from Robert Hay’s workshop “Creating a Culture of Generosity.”
Workshop description: Is your congregation’s approach to stewardship stuck in a rut? Are you living in a state of scarcity and longing for abundance? This workshop will outline a program that has moved churches from a four-week stewardship campaign to a year-round culture of generosity. Learn how to form your Generosity Team, how to create an activities calendar for your church’s funds ministry, how to prepare a narrative budget, and how to integrate all aspects of your church into the life of generosity.
At the request of Rev. Billy Honor, video of this sermon is not being posted.
Here is the liturgy for the service.
One: This is our ancient story:
All: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.
One: In him was life and the life was the light of all people.
All: So no traveler, not even fools, could go astray.
One: God called us on the holy way where she was leading.
All: And he comes to us again today—to follow where he leads.
One: She promised to go with us, and she is with us now.
All: The wilderness shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom.
Holy God, in this dry and weary land, our souls are thirsty. We long for wholeness, for justice, for peace, for You, and yet our longing doesn’t always lead us to those places. We recall the moments we’ve tried to quench our own thirst, make our own path, or be our own healer. Whisper to us the promises of your grace, illumine the way home, and hold us in your loving arms, where are shall be well. Amen.
O Lord, hear our prayer.
Silent Confession
One: In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.
All: Amen.
One: In a world that offers so many old lies and false stories,
help us live into this truth:
All: We are held by a love that we are not required to deserve.
One: And nothing can separate us from that love of God. Nothing.
All: O Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!
One: In the midst of our questions, doubts, and fears,
we are bold to make our home in your new creation.
All: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven, we are accepted
and everything is made new. Amen.
One: Our Lord Jesus said:
All: “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
One: “This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it:
All: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
One: And so that you may live connected to God,
to one another, and to your own truest life,
may the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
All: And also with you.
passing the peace
Isaiah 35
Invitation to the Table
One: Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the holy Supper which we are about to celebrate is a feast of remembrance, of communion, and of hope. We remember the new and eternal covenant of grace and reconciliation that we are accepted by God. We come to have communion with the one who promises to be with us always and with each other. And we hope that at this table, we might remember our deepest identity as children, beloved by God, so we might better live into who God has created us to be.
Two: The table around which we gather is not a Presbyterian table or a NEXT Church table. This is Christ’s table, and Christ invites everyone to dine with the Divine. Wherever you are on your own wilderness journey, you are welcome at this table. And because we don’t want anything we say or do to be a barrier between you and the love of God, we get out of the way. (Jeremy and Whitney move from in front of the table to behind it).
One: If you are here, you are welcome.
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
One: God be with you.
All: And also with you.
Two: Open up your hearts.
All: We open them to God and to one another.
One: Let us give thanks to our God.
All: It is right to give thanks and praise.
One: Holy and right it is – and it just makes sense – to give thanks to you in all times and in all places, so we come to this table with thankfulness. You created heaven with all its hosts, the earth with all its beauty, and creation with all its charm. And we are thankful. Your light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And we are thankful. You give us life and being. You hold us in your loving arms, but you have shown us the fullness of your love by sending into the world your son, Jesus. And we are thankful.
Two: We also come to this table with longing. Gracious God, in this brief moment of silence, we recall our longing with you (Allow 15 seconds of silence). We long to meet you at this table: to taste and see that you are good. We long for connection: with you, with others, and with our own truest self. We remember your unconditional love for all your children. We remember your love for us. We long for a world where everyone belongs, where there’s enough, where all of life can flourish. May this feast be a foretaste of that world.
One: And we come to this table with hope. In a life of dead ends and disappointment, loss and loneliness, we hold onto hope. We cling to hope. We hope that in this meal you might give us a taste of a future where we are okay, and perhaps with your grace we might live in the present trusting that all of life is your good hands. And as this grain has been gathered from many fields into one loaf and these grapes from many hills into one cup, grant O God that your whole church would soon be gathered into your maternal embrace. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Two: And in the spirit of remembering, we pray the prayer you taught us to pray saying, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” Amen.
Words of Institution
One: On the night our Lord Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it (break bread), saying, “Take; eat, this is my body which is broken for you. Do this remembering me.”
Two: After they had finished, in a similar manner, he took the cup saying, “This is the new testament in my blood poured out for you (pour juice). As often as you drink this, do so remembering me.”
One: (raise bread) Taste, and see.
Two: (raise cup) Drink, and remember.
One: Come, for all things are now ready.
Closing Prayer
Two: Having been nourished at your table… (this was mostly extemporaneous) …May you direct our steps in the way of peace that we might become creators of justice and joy. Amen!
One: Go into the world in peace.
Have courage.
Two: Hold on to all that is good.
Return no one evil for evil.
Three: Strengthen the fainthearted.
Support the weak.
Four: Help the suffering.
Honor all people.
Five: Love and serve the Lord,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Six: And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all,
now and forevermore. Amen.
John Schmidt, pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, gives a testimony presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering.
John E. Schmidt is pastor and head of staff at Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland. A native of Louisiana, John served with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and as a PC(USA) Missionary in Japan before taking a call to parish ministry. He was a founding board member of HopeSprings, a ministry in the Baltimore area committed to removing the stigma of HIV/AIDS and mobilizing church volunteers to serve people impacted by AIDS. John currently serves as chair of the Commission for Thriving Congregations in the Presbytery of Baltimore. John and his wife Debbie have been married for 42 years, and have two children and 4 grandchildren. Their daughter and son-in-law are both ordained in the PC(USA).