Move

Stop being pushed by canned carols

Or pulled by the lure of early bird sales and rock bottom holiday prices

And Move.

Move beyond the rush & the drive

Choose something more, something that doesn’t come from a store…

And Move to Ancient Rhythms, 

Dance in the flicker of Sacred Rhymes 

that sing out from the very depth of who we are….

Move anew way, Join us.

First Sunday of Advent

So you think you Can’t Dance:
Isaiah 2: 1-5

Grounding Study:  

Cultural and historic barriers (particularly to white people) dancing, western tendency to separate soul and body in a manner that makes the body less acceptable and does not celebrate the bodies goodness, feeling comfortable in our own skin, loving our own bodies, learn to connect in to the body in all of its different gifts not limitations.  Our cultural boxes that make us feel like we must be experts to dance, as children everyone believed they could dance, practiced where every they wanted but as adults only professional dancers dance rather than communities expressing live through dance.  The barriers we put in place to connecting and participating and going deep as individuals.

“Our cells reverberate with movement.  Gerarasu Van Der Leeuw writes in Sacred and Profane Beauty, “Dance is not something in which we can participate or not as we like.  Whoever does not dance runs races, waddles, limps-that is they dance badly.  We must all learn once more to dance.”….Notice movements you all ready make….Every Dancer needs a sanctuary – (Safe space to express and connect)” –Dance the Sacred Art by Cynthia Winton-Henry, p 16.

Four Myths: It’s too embarrassing to Dance.  There is no connection between dance and spirituality.  The body is not to be trusted.  Dancing isn’t important – p7

Call to Worship

Move. Stop being pushed by canned carols or pulled by Black Friday’s red signs

And move to the rhythm that sings out from your soul

One voice pleas, “O Come O Come Emmanuel”

Move. Dance into a brave new day, a season of abundance without buying more, 

dance without fear, 

move beyond judgment, 

feel the rhythm of creation and the hope of God’s sacred call.

Two voices rejoice, “Lord of the Dance” (from the sides)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God.  

God among us, God within us, 

calling us to move with the Spirit and dance  a new way,

All Respond: God in Whom we live and move and have our being.  

Woven plea and response 
(combined Refrain of O Come O Come blended with Lord of the Dance)

Congregation is invited to sing at the choir’s invitation
Everyone sings refrain of Lord of the Dance twice for the Processional

Lighting the advent wreath

We light this candle, as a symbol of peace, 
The flame dancing to creation’s eternal beat, 
drawing us close as we in silent stillness wait 
for the mystery to unfold.

Lighting the Tree

We light these trees, in the midst of our waiting.
As we leave this place, may we see every Christmas tree as a symbol of peace.
May it illuminate the sacred in our waiting and open our eyes to the sacrament of our season.

Pastoral Prayer

Loving God, Living Water

You bid us dance when we are afraid we don’t know how to start 

or what steps to take.  

You urge us on anyway.

You bid us move when we worry what others will think, 

when we are frozen with the fear of what might wiggle while we shake.  

But you set the rhythm to pulsing and call us to move anyway.

You bid us welcome, to love the bodies that we are, to dance without fear, 

to celebrate the wonder of each movement we make 

and to have faith that we will learn your steps of peace 

and your choreography of grace.

For we are your people and you are our God, in you we live and move 

and have our being.  

Amen

Second Sunday of Advent

Prepare and Practice

John the Baptist Story
Matthew 3:1-12

Grounding Study: 

Discipline of stretching and warming up to avoid injury, daily practice and repeated small steps you must learn before leaping, learning not what not to move is of equal importance, learning intentionality of movement, balance of strength and flexibility as dynamic grace held in perfect tension.

Making is a primary act.  We make time, make dinner, make love, make a date, make a face, make a bed, make friends, make a joke, make babies, make sure, make way…. Are we creative or what? We may follow recipes and rules, downplaying our ingenuity but the urge to fashion the world is in us all, from people driving tractors to clerks neatly stocking the shelves at the store.  Creativity is not so much a feeling as it is the everyday reinvention of our relationship with the material of life.  Kinesthetic imagination leads us to employ our imagination, unlocks our abilities…ignites us beyond our ordinary sensibilities...Observe the ability of children to transform their world into a parallel reality.  This charms us.  The five-year-old does not think, Let me pretend that I’m a cat.”  She gives herself to catness.  Similarly when indigenous people put on the costumes of bear and tiger and bird they aren’t pretending to be these animals.  They become them.  The dancers’ movements take on the essence of the animal as much as possible, enabling a different view of the world….Healing by make believe dance classes…To make belief is also what people of faith must do…we can not see but through the practices of faith we can find wholeness…. -Dance the Sacred art, p 42

Call to Worship

Move. Stop being pushed by rock bottom holiday prices 

and move knowing you deserve more than the worm of the early bird sale.

Move to the rhythm that sings out from the depth of who we are.

One voice pleas, “O Come O Come Emmanuel”

Move. Dance into a radiant new day, a season of balance, generosity and grace 

dance without fear, 

move beyond judgment, 

feel the rhythm of creation preparing a new way.

Two voices rejoice, “Lord of the Dance” (from the sides)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God.  

God among us, God within us, 

calling us to move with the Spirit and practice dynamic steps of peace:

God in Whom we live and move and have our being.  

Woven plea and response (combined Refrain)
Congregation is invited to sing at the choir’s invitation
Everyone sings refrain of Lord of the Dance twice for the Processional

Lighting the advent wreath

We light these candles, as a symbol of joy, 
the flame dancing to creation’s eternal beat, 
drawing us close as we in silent stillness wait 
for the mystery to unfold.

Lighting the Tree

We light these trees, in the midst of our waiting.
As we leave this place, may we see every Christmas tree as a symbol of joy.
May it illuminate the sacred in our waiting and open our eyes to the sacrament of our season.

Pastoral Prayer

Loving God, Living Water

You call us to move and we are nervous, 

You call us to dance and we don’t know how.  

Be the spirit pulsing through our veins that urges us on, 

Be the rhythm that will not let us shrink away.  

Be the grace that invites us to walk and re-walk, 

To practice and re-practice 

the lessons that were already there, seeded deep within

Until at last we are soaring in your tender dance of peace.

For we are your people and you are our God, 

in you we live and move and have our being.  Amen.

Great Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you / And also with you

Lift up your hearts / We lift them up to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God / It is right to give God our thanks and praise

It is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to praise You, Loving God, Founder of the feast, Heart-Song tapping creation’s sacred beat.  You waltz us through the panic.  You dance us safely in.  You are the grace in our steps and the strength in our resolve; it is in You, that we live and move and have our being.

We thank you for Jesus Christ, 

Who moved within all of our reality, danced the tender balance of strength and flexibility, and taught us to practice grace; step-by-step and day-by-day, grace to invite all to the table, grace to pick one another up when we stumble off step and grace to live in the risky rhythm of peace that sings out, “God is with us all.” 

God of Compassion, we praise you and with the faithful of every time and place, join creation’s eternal hymn:

Holy, Holy, Holy….

With Christ, love embodied, You delivered us from brokenness and destruction
And made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit

On the night in which Jesus gathered his beloved family and friends to the table
He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, 
gave the grain of hope to the people he loved and said
“Take, eat.” “Do this in remembrance of me”

When the supper was over, and the crumbs lay round about the table, he took the cup,
Gave thanks to you, invited his loved ones to taste the fruit of paradise and said
Drink form this all of you, this is a symbol of the new covenant.  Poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins that in overcoming brokenness you might embrace hope.  Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

And so in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ.  We lift our voices in praise and thanksgiving as we proclaim the mystery of our faith

Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.

Pour out your spirit of hope in the midst of our struggles and missteps, move us beyond brokenness; hold us through the stress and strife as we remember people who journey with us straining under heavy loads.

  -Struggles named here-

This we pray
Loving God Fill us

Pour out your Spirit of joy as we give thanks in taking the bread and cup and remember all who bring the dance of laughter to our days and warm our hearts in this season of grace.

-Joys named here-

This we pray
Loving God feed us.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these gifts of grape and grain
Make them be for us the body of Christ, 
That we might be for the world God’s people of compassion nurtured in Christ’s love, moving as one human family. 

By your Spirit make us one with Christ
One with each other
And one in ministry to all the world
Until Christ comes in the full glory of compassion 
And we feast at the table of paradise.

Through your child Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, loving God now and forever.  

Amen

Lord’s Prayer

Third Sunday of Advent

Matthew’s Joseph’s Story
Accidents will happen or Falling out of step  

Grounding Study:

Preparation does not make us accident proof, when we learn the steps of the dance to not mess up or to avoid honest expression rather than learning to dance, learning to move with the rhythms.  When the only dance we know is the one that was choreographed out step by step rather than learning to dance so we can get connect with the on beat and find our step that connects with the dance and gets us back in the dance.  

“It is tempting to try to rein in the unruliness of the creative process, especially at the start.   Planning lets you impose order on the chaotic process of making something new, but when it’s taken to far you get locked into a status quo, and creative thinking is about breaking free from the status quo, even from the one you make yourself.  That’s why it’s vital to know the difference between good planning and too much planning…..Working in real time….I began to see that overplanning can be as pernicious as not planning at all, There is an emotional lie to over planning; it creates a security blanket that lets you assume you have things under control, that you are further along than you really are.  Things that can derail your planning or Accidents 1) Other People 2) Perfectionism 3) Wrong Structure 4) Obligation (different than commitment) 5) the wrong materials”  -Tharp, The Creative Habit, p 122 

Dancing activates the living waters with in us and gives us energy.  Right is Irrelevant,  “When you can feel the inner quality of your own particular body…you dance as a conversation with yourself and in this state of self-harmony, you are no longer a collection of separate, disorganized body parts.  You are dance.” –Dance: Sacred Art, p 13

Call to Worship

Move. Stop being pushed by wants masquerading as needs 

or pulled by the race to keep up

and move knowing you are beautifully and wonderfully made.

One voice pleas, “O Come O Come Emmanuel”

Move. Dance into the sacred rhythms’ that started it all, drawing the sun and the moon into sway, hear the song of each ocean wave reach its crest and the hum of hope that rushes like wind through the evergreens, and dance.

Dance without fear, 

Move beyond perfect and 

feel the beat of creation preparing a new way.

Two voices rejoice, “Lord of the Dance” (from the sides)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God.  

God among us, God within us, 

calling us to keep time with the Spirit and step lively with passion.

God in Whom we live and move and have our being.  

Woven plea and response (combined Refrain)
Congregation is invited to sing at the choir’s invitation

Everyone sings refrain of Lord of the Dance twice for the Processional

Lighting the advent wreath

We light these candles 
that we may remember our call to peace and celebrate God’s joy.  

We light our third candle, as a symbol of love, 
the flame dancing to creation’s eternal beat, 
drawing us close as we in silent stillness wait 
for the mystery to unfold.

Lighting the Tree

We light these trees, in the midst of our waiting.  

As we leave this place, may we see every Christmas tree as a symbol of love.
May it illuminate the sacred in our waiting and open our eyes to the sacrament of our season.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Dancing Together

Isaiah-wilderness is transformed into a highway of return for those in exile
Isaiah 35: 1-10

Grounding Study: 

Partnership and collaboration for dance, how we struggle to dance together but how it can be dynamic and life giving.  Needing to know our partners, worry that they might embarrass us or lead us down a path we don’t want to go.  Our collaboration leaves us vulnerable and the more we know the stronger we are together.

Hagag, the Hebrew word connected to Festival means to move in a circle, dance was not an after thought but the central action of the festival –Dance the Sacred Art p2

God moved over the deep it is imbedded in our worship

Call to Worship

Move. Stop being pushed by long lists 

or pulled into the patterns that make us feel incomplete,

and move to the rhythm that calls out from the depth of each soul.

One voice pleas, “O Come O Come Emmanuel”

Move. Dance, slow and steady at first, with the grace of a child

into the rhythm of freedom; the tempo of life, whole, evolving and complete.

dance without fear, 

move beyond judgment, 

feel the heart of creation preparing a new way.

Two voices rejoice, “Lord of the Dance” (from the sides)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God.  

God among us, God within us, 

calling us to move together, heart-in-heart and hand-in-hand.

All: God in Whom we live and move and have our being.  

Woven plea and response (combined Refrain)
Congregation is invited to sing at the choir’s invitation

Everyone sings refrain of Lord of the Dance twice for the Processional

Lighting the advent wreath

We light these candles 
that we may remember our call to God’s love, peace and joy.  

We light our fourth candle, as a symbol of hope, 
the flame dancing to creation’s eternal beat, 
drawing us close as we in silent stillness wait 
for the mystery to unfold.

Lighting the Tree

We light these trees, in the midst of our waiting.  

As we leave this place, may we see every Christmas tree as a symbol of hope. 
May it illuminate the sacred in our waiting and open our eyes to the sacrament of our season.

Choreography

Christmas Eve: December 24th
Isaiah – What is the significance of this birth story to us?

Grounding Study:

Church or God as Choreographer, co-creating with the dancers who embody the art of life, inviting into a movement that builds collectively, that invites all people into the full expression of their gifts, making order out of chaotic movements and purpose out of the direction.

Carol means “to dance,” and chorus relates to choreo and choreography meaning to dance together…Our European Christmas carols and choruses sprang right from the festive dance. -Dance the sacred Art –p 3

Slave Dances—Circle dances created worship for the early church.  -Leading Ladies, p76

Choreographic leaders are leaders who dance their vision to life, develop dance routines that enable other people to dance the vision, translate the significance of the steps and free people to dance.  The vision is transformative, not only to move people but to join and internalize the vision for themselves, to make it muscle memory, vision for transformation emerges out of everyday circumstances that need to be changed and a significant role of the leader who wants to embrace a vision is to pay attention to the world around.  –Leading Ladies, p77-78

Empowering the dance to take root, not doing the dance for us.

When I speak of the religious dance, I want so much that you will understand what I really mean.  I mean a dimension of the free movement of our divine selfhood in any direction, in any posture, in any gesture or rhythm that releases our highest and most harmonious existence.  Your rhythms and sacred cultural forms maybe any spiritual tradition, symbolical or allegorical.  You may individually find your own deepest spiritual strength and highest hope in the classical forms of the old, beautiful, mother church.  This church has endured through the centuries, and its mass is one of the sacred and beautiful ballets in the world. – Wisdom comes Dancing, writings of Ruth St. Denis, p75

If it be true that the kingdom of God is within us, and if it be equally true that all powers of heaven and earth are to be subject to the will of God, then surely the changing of the outer world into images of the world within by means of rhythm, proportion, form and color is the work of true salvation.  This is the highest duty of our race, our race of dancers, those who know they are the temple and the instrument of the living spirit. -– Wisdom comes Dancing, writings of Ruth St. Denis, 185.

Call to Worship/Candle lighting

Move.  God is with us, the spark of hope igniting our spirits to dance beyond judgment and move without fear.

God with in us, God among us: 

calling us to move a new way.

Move.  God is with us, teaching us the tender steps of peace, the strength to dance beyond our missteps and get back on beat.

God in whom we live and move and have our being; 

Opening our hearts to the sacred dancing in eyes across our city and around the globe.

Move.  God is with us, the purpose of each gesture, the direction beyond the race to keep up, the tender grace to dance between what is and what can be if only we would try.

God is with us and we set the Christ candle to light, 

the flame dancing to creation’s eternal beat, calling us move a new way and dance from the very depth of who we are.

Pastoral Prayer

Loving God, Living Water

Lights twinkle against the backdrop of long winter nights and we gather, some of us weary, some of us wired from the rush and we draw a deep breath of peace.  For in you we live and move and have our being.  As we seek you, may we find ourselves in the Christmas story that unfolds.  A story of God with us, the sacred pulsing through our veins, a story of shepherds who feel the rhythm of hope moving them from the fields and a story of wise wonderers, awake to a vision of new life.  And so we gather, with the shepards and wise ones, we gather with a new hope of ages long past, we gather to dance beyond the judgment to move without fear and celebrate God alive within us, doing the work of Christmas by our hands and dancing joy through our feet.  For we are your people and you are our God.  Amen.

Offering

Because you give we are able to support missions and ministries that nourish souls and change lives across Omaha and around the world.  We are a global church and your giving works to bring peace and hope to sacred children around the globe.

Loving God Living Water

You call us to move a new way.  To say no the commercials that tell us to buy more so we can be more, we gather to claim and celebrate that we are enough.  To say no to the voices that tell us to keep, hold and take and we give.   We open our tight grasp, we relax our muscles and we move a beyond fear and we dance a new way.  Bless, Loving God our gifts that we might do your work of hope and have the courage to be your people of compassion in the world.

Amen

Christmas Eve Children’s Time Program

Overview:  

• As people enter worship on Christmas Eve, children will be invited to participate, given bells that are numbered and different colors, dividing them into five groups. 

• Each group will have one child reader and one child box carrier, who has practiced in advance.  

• During the carol, “What Child Is This”, children from group one (silver bells) will gather in the front of the sanctuary with a reader and a child holding the P of the Peace boxes.  While groups two (e, Pink Bells), three (a, Green Bells), four (c, Purple Bells) and five (e, Blue Bells) wait in at the side of the crossroads for their turn to move into place and read.  

• Each group will move and ring their bells durning the music.  The children will move forward when it is their turn during the music refrain and at that same time the group that just read will move to the chancel with their box, place it on the table and form an arch behind and around the table, in front of the choir. 

• As the fifth reader concludes the children will put all the boxes on the table in the order that spells out peace.  Ringing their bells to the music they will return to the congregation and join their families.

Reader 1 (Group P, Silver bells): 

 Maybe this Christmas will mean something more than any gift we can wrap.

Group of children move the peace box into place on communion table and next group of children move through the sanctuary and take place at the front as music director sings.  

Music Director sings:

Maybe this Christmas will mean something more

Maybe this year love will appear

Deeper than ever before.  Ohh…

Congregation sings…. Maybe this Christmas

Reader 2 (E Group with Pink Bells):  

Maybe this Christmas every child, 

across the street and around the globe, 

will go to bed warm, well loved and well fed.

• Group of children move the peace box into place on communion table and next group of children move through the sanctuary and take place at the front as music director sings.  

Music Director sings:

And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call/Someone we love

Someone we’ve lost/For reasons we can’t quite recall.  Ohh, 

Congregation sings…Maybe this Christmas

Reader 3 (A Group with Green Bells):  

Maybe this Christmas family will mean 

something more, maybe we will dance beyond walls 

and cross boundaries to be friends.  

 

Group of children move the peace box into place on communion table and next group of children move through the sanctuary and take place at the front as music director sings.  

Music Director sings:

Maybe there’ll be an open door/Maybe the star that shined before

Will shine once more.   Ohh,

Congregation sings …Maybe this Christmas.

Reader4 (C Group with Purple Bells): 

Maybe this Christmas we will catch those who fall, 

maybe we will dance side-by-side and hand-in-hand, 

listening to the heart-songs hum 

from sacred people who dance different steps, to Hope’s common drum.

Group of children move the peace box into place on communion table and next group of children move through the sanctuary and take place at the front as music director sings.  

Music Director sings:

And maybe this Christmas will find us at last/In heavenly peace

Grateful at least/For the love we’ve been shown in the past.  Ohh, 

Congregation Sings…Maybe this Christmas

Reader 5 (E Group with Blue Bells):  

Maybe this Christmas we will practice new steps in 

God’s Dance of Peace, 

maybe we will move beyond judgment and dance without fear, 

maybe we will celebrate Christmas each 

and every moment of the year.

Group of children move the peace box into place on communion table and next group of children move through the sanctuary and take place at the front as congregation sings.  Ad the music director transitions to Joy to the World hymn tune, Pastor dismisses children to return to be seated with their children in the congregation.  

Congregation sings:

Ohh, Maybe this Christmas

Ohh, Maybe this Christmas

Ohh, Maybe this Christmas

Music Director Plays: Transition to Joy to the World

Congregation sings: Joy to the World (v1)

Great Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you /And also with you
Lift up your hearts/We lift them up to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God/It is right to give God our thanks and praise

It is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to praise You, Loving God, Founder of the feast, Heart-Song tapping creation’s sacred beat.  You waltz us through the panic.  You dance us safely in.  You are the grace in our steps and the strength in our resolve; it is in You, that we live and move and have our being. 

We thank you for Jesus Christ, 

Who moved within all of our reality, danced the tender balance of strength and flexibility, and taught us to practice grace; step-by-step and day-by-day, grace to invite all to the table, grace to pick one another up when we stumble off step and grace to live in the risky rhythm of peace that sings out, “God is with us all.” 

God of Compassion, we praise you and with the faithful of every time and place, join creation’s eternal hymn:

Holy, Holy, Holy….

With Christ, love embodied, You delivered us from brokenness and destruction
And made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit

On the night in which Jesus gathered his beloved family and friends to the table
He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, 
gave the grain of hope to the people he loved and said
“Take, eat.” “Do this in remembrance of me”

When the supper was over, and the crumbs lay round about the table, he took the cup,
Gave thanks to you, invited his loved ones to taste the fruit of paradise and said

Drink form this all of you, this is a symbol of the new covenant.  Poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins that in overcoming brokenness you might embrace hope.  Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

And so in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ.  We lift our voices in praise and thanksgiving as we proclaim the mystery of our faith

Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.

Pour out your spirit of hope in the midst of our struggles and missteps, move us beyond brokenness; hold us through the stress and strife as we remember people who journey with us straining under heavy loads.

  -Struggles named here-

This we pray
Loving God Fill us

Pour out your Spirit of joy as we give thanks in taking the bread and cup and remember all who bring the dance of laughter to our days and warm our hearts in this season of grace.

-Joys named here-

This we pray
Loving God feed us.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these gifts of grape and grain
Make them be for us the body of Christ, 
That we might be for the world God’s people of compassion nurtured in Christ’s love, moving as one human family. 

By your Spirit make us one with Christ
One with each other
And one in ministry to all the world
Until Christ comes in the full glory of compassion 
And we feast at the table of paradise.

Through your child Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, loving God now and forever.  

Amen

Lord’s Prayer

First Sunday After Christmas
With each gift unwrapped, the tree stands empty and the branches sigh at the moment of peace.

Yet the work of Christmas has only just begun.
Loved ones are parting as each returns home; wondering what the New Year might bring.  

Yet the work of Christmas has only just begun.
Christmas has begun in you and in me, 

Calling us to work for a new day of peace and a New Year when the oppressed go free.