UUFA Sunday Morning Program Committee
The Sunday Morning Program Committee (SMPC) plans and
implements year-round Sunday morning services during times
when our minister doesn't speak. The committee works with our
minister to facilitate and to plan shared programs. Members
arrange for speakers from within and from outside the
Fellowship.
Current Working Schedule
Programs in 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Agenda for upcoming meeting
Facilitator Duties
Workshop Notes
Committee Members
Resources
Fellowship Musicians
Worship Workshop Notes From Rev. Brian Eslinger, September 2002
I. Theory
Why worship?
"Woerth-scippen: to shape, or be shaped by that which is of worth",
Rev. Dr. Kendal Gibbons
- to ascribe value
- manipulate what is powerful
- be conformed to what matters
Communal Context
- expression OF a community, not TO an audience
- human activity
- liturgy is an art form
II. Application
What do we do on Sunday morning?
- What makes it different than anything else?
- Religious act (Re-ligare: to bind back, to re-connect)
- Symbolic/ritual act
- Clarify, improve, demonstrate relationship between
individuals and community
- Prophetic means of creating meaning and connections
- Touch a level of depth and human emotions
Creating an experience:
- Atmosphere
- Differentiate time
- Beginning sets time apart [close door]
- Ending a ritual act of reintegration [go in peace]
- Time to affirm the human spirit
- Chance to acknowledge other's presence
- Create invitation, comfort
- Meet people where they are: acknowledge pain an finitude
- Give attending to/enjoying back (from the leaders)
- Centering [settling]
- Offering (chance to participate)
- Multiple ways to impart, receive information
- Feeling, Sensing, Intellect
- Introverted-extroverted, calm-action
- Need for stable ritual and desire for variety
- Comfort and challenge
- Flow
- Movement of service from:
- quiet to loud
- active to passive
III. Nuts and Bolts [not to be confused with the Nuts and Bolts Committee]
As Presenters and Facilitators
- We are hosts [be aware of the immediate environment]
- Discern and speak to the needs of our community [speak to yourself]
- Prepare to be spontaneous [know your text]
Resources
- Books
- UUA Hymnal
- Books of poetry, Earth prayers, Earth poems
- Literature
- Online UUA worship web: http://www.uua.org/worshipweb/main.html
- Journal of Liberal Religion: http://www.meadville.edu/jlr.html
- All kinds of sites (name a topic)
How to use them
- Reading
- Not too long
- To set up something else
- Mix prose, poetry, responsive reading, silence
- To set up or not to set up?
-Songs
- Relevant [words and emotion]?
- Choosing songs
- Hymnal
- Rise up singing
- Other sources
- Variety is good (mix familiar and new)
- [Resources:] Peggy Earnshaw, Kitty Fisher, Sue Haug
Workshop Notes from Rev. Brian Eslinger, September 2001
1. What is a Sunday morning service?
a. What are our expectations on Sunday morning?
b. Worship - word from the roots 'to shape' or 'of worth' [from Kendal Gibbons]
i. worship is a human activity.
ii. form of self-expression
iii. perspectives:
- Historical, an-anamneses (helps us to not forget)
- Theological, intellectual access to the sacred, 'what is sacred?'
- Sociological, expression of community
- Psychological, letting go and holding together, reduce anxiety
2. What do we do on Sunday morning?
a. Liturgy is an art form
b. Symbolic creation of ritual and concrete meanings
i. seeks to improve/clarify/demonstrate/renew/change relationship
between individual and community
ii. prophetic role to seek us to create meaning and connections
c. Touch depth level of human emotions and meaning
d. Creative act
i. has own time and space
ii. specific movement that comforts and challenges
iii. meaning is created in multiple ways, transformation is possible
3. What do we do?
a. Create the environment and set the time apart
i. beginning and ending, ritualized act (stay on time)
ii. door is closed and space is set apart, opened and we rejoin
iii. help people feel safe by leading with confidence and
enough structure
b. Deal with the power created
i. know that people will have multiple reactions to the same
content
ii. your job is not to 'fix' but to listen
iii. seek means of integrating peak experiences and the worship
experience
4. Creating the service
a. Eight actions
i. Entering ( opening, beginning) setting the time apart
ii. Acknowledging (recognition, understanding) meet people
where they are, acknowledge them, finitude.
iii. Receiving (attending to/enjoying) given to the people there
from the leaders.
iv. Centering (meditating, focus) blank screen to project our
inner lives on. Silence and/or certain music works well.
v. Offering (contributing/participating) moments of participation
vi. Affirmation (praise, rejoicing) affirm life and the
human spirit, hope
vii. Connection (contact, reaching out) acknowledging each
other's presence, connecting to larger whole
viii. RE-differentiation (closing, ending) physical act of ending and change
b. Multiple learning styles
i. introverted need time to process, quite
ii extroverted need to use their voices to gain understanding
iii. visual learners need to 'see' something
iv. stories and personal experience are more meaningful
than data, and more accessible
c. The aesthetic and the cognitive
- Try and include components of both
5. Creating a Sunday Morning service (nuts and bolts)
a. As presenter
i. keep various goals and elements in mind
ii. we speak to those needs we have
iii. plan for the unexpected
b. As facilitator
i. we are the hosts and want to demonstrate the
best of our community
ii. offer what ever resources we have available for
the presenter and work with their desires
c. Resources
i. Music
- Music committee, chair Peggy Earnshaw. This committee
will help pick hymns or other songs and also will
coordinate special music. Sue Haug coordinates the
accompanists
- Blue Moon players provide folk-style music, usually
on set dates
- The Choir (Fellowship Voices) will perform periodically
through out the year
- Special Music (Piano Trio, CIS Brass, MusicMen,
Prairie Thistles, etc.) - Coordinated by Kitty Fisher
ii. Reading resources
- the hymnal
- other worship books
- the web, http://uua.org/main.html
- other
d. Basic structure of a service
- Opening words, Chalice lighting, Song (welcome, integration)
- Milestones (acknowledgment, offering, affirmation, connection)
- Meditation (centering)
- Reading (receiving, connection)
- Offertory (offering, centering)
- Presentation (multiple)
- Song (multiple)
- Closing words (re-differentiation)