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    Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers
    Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers
    Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers

    By Rev. Kenneth H. Carter JR.

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    About this ebook

    Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and broadly ecumenical, this addition to the Just In Time! series provides creative liturgies, sermon helps, and prayers for Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, and the 40 days of Easter.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426728075
    Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers
    Author

    Rev. Kenneth H. Carter JR.

    Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. is resident bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Along with the Cabinet, he gives pastoral and administrative leadership to almost 800 congregations, fresh expressions of church, campus ministries and outreach initiatives in an episcopal area that stretches from Tallahassee and Jacksonville to Miami and the Keys. He came to the Florida Conference in 2012, following a ministry of almost thirty years in Western North Carolina, twenty-nine as a local church pastor. Bishop Carter is the immediate past-president of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church, and he was one of three moderators of the Commission on A Way Forward, the commission authorized by the General Conference in matters of unity and human sexuality. He is author of a number of books, most recently Fresh Expressions of People Over Property and Fresh Expressions: A New Kind of Methodist Church (both with Audrey Warren) and Embracing The Wideness: The Shared Convictions of United Methodists. He travels extensively across the state, preaching in local churches and encouraging lay and clergy leaders. Bishop Carter and his wife, Pam have been married for thirty-seven years. Pam is also an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, and was previously a regional team leader in disaster recovery for the Florida Conference. They are blessed with two adult daughters: Liz lives in Los Angeles, where she is a PhD. student at U.C.L.A., and Abby is on the staff of Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tennessee. Abby and her husband Allen are parents of Paige, the bishop’s granddaughter. The Carters consider it a great blessing to live and serve in Florida.

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      Book preview

      Just in Time! Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers - Rev. Kenneth H. Carter JR.

      JUST IN TIME!

      __________________

      EASTER SERVICES,

      SERMONS,

      AND PRAYERS

      Kenneth H. Carter Jr.

      Abingdon Press

      Nashville

      JUST IN TIME!

      EASTER SERVICES, SERMONS, AND PRAYERS

      Copyright © 2007 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved.

      Prayers and liturgies may be reproduced provided the following credit line and copyright notice appear on each copy: "From Easter Services, Sermons, and Prayers by Kenneth H. Carter Jr. Copyright 2007 by Abingdon Press. Reproduced by permission." No other part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801 or e-mailed to permissions@abingdonpress.com.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Carter, Kenneth H.

      Easter services, sermons, and prayers / Kenneth H. Carter Jr.

        p. cm. — (Just in time)

      Includes index.

      ISBN 978-0-687-64632-6 (binding: pbk., adhesive perfect : alk. paper)

       1. Easter. I. Title.

      BV55.C35 2007

      263'.93—dc22

      2007006936

      All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      For the Church that bears witness to the Risen Lord

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Chapter One: The Importance and Meaning of Easter

      Life and Hope

      Next Steps

      Chapter Two: Prepare to Extend Hospitality

      The Easter Hospitality Team

      Should You Add a Service?

      Extend Hospitality to All Who Will Attend Easter Services

      Congregational Preparation for Easter

      Personal Preparation for Easter

      Chapter Three: Easter Services

      Four Different Services

      An Easter Vigil

      An Easter Sunrise Service

      A Traditional Easter Service

      A Non-Traditional (Alternative or Contemporary) Easter Service

      Chapter Four: Easter Liturgies

      Processional

      Congregational Singing

      Announcements

      The Reading of Scripture

      The People of God, Called to Worship

      Prayers of Confession

      Prayers of Intercession

      Thanksgiving over the Water for an Easter Sunday Baptism

      Great Thanksgiving for Holy Communion on Easter Sunday

      Benedictions

      Chapter Five: Teaching Sermons for Easter

      Like Him We Rise (Col. 3:1-4)

      When an Ending Is Actually a Beginning (John 20:1-18)

      The Unlikely Victory of God (1 Cor. 15:1-8, 50-58)

      Morning Has Broken (Matt. 28:1-10; Psalm 30)

      The Easter Testimony (1 Cor. 15:51-58)

      Chapter Six: Easter Mission: Not an Ending but a Beginning

      The Easter Mission in the Gospel Accounts

      The Easter Mission in the Congregation: Fifty Days of Resurrection Living

      A Sermon Series for the Easter Season

      Resources

      Scripture Index

      INTRODUCTION

      In writing this book I have sought to recall memorable Easter services. I remember sitting in a pew, next to my father, one of the few times he attended worship with our family. I remember sitting outside in athletic field bleachers, on an unseasonably cold spring morning in South Georgia, anticipating a sunrise service. I remember leading an Easter service on a date that co-incided with the news that I would be assigned to a different church in a few months. I remember the beauty of a deep, solo voice singing The trumpet shall sound!

      I remember walking to a graveside service on Easter morning in a drizzling rainfall. I remember the Easter Sunday following the death of three wonderful teenage boys in an automobile accident on Good Friday. It is appropriate that I list their names here: Wesley Burton, Andy Burton, and Ryan Shoaf. Their lives, and their deaths on that weekend, have forced me to think about Easter in ways that I had never imagined.

      I remember an Easter morning when the alarm did not go off, and our family was almost late for the sunrise service! I recall watching a family leave the campus of the church on Easter morning, because there literally was no room for them. I recall Easter outdoors beside the lake at a new congregation, listening to the wild geese, and eating breakfast after the service had concluded. I think of Easter at Providence United Methodist Church, where I am blessed to serve: the processional, the congregational singing, the reverence for the word, and the Hallelujah Chorus.

      These are a few of my Easter memories. I recall them in order that you might engage in your own recollection: moments that were filled with hope or grief, surprise or order, fullness or emptiness, death or life. In a way, Easter ties all of this together.

      • There is grief: Why do you weep? Jesus asks.

      • There is hope: Christ is risen, the disciples confess.

      • There is surprise: He is not here.

      • There is order: This was to fulfill the scriptures.

      • There is fullness: Did not our hearts burn within us?

      • There is emptiness: Do not cling to me.

      • There is death: Why do you seek the living among the dead?

      • And there is life: I will not leave you comfortless . . . I am coming to you.

      I invite you to enter deeply into the truth of Easter. Immerse yourself in the scriptures. Consider the creative possibilities. Put yourself in the place of those who rarely attend worship, except perhaps for this Sunday. Trust in the authority of the story itself. Be aware of those who grieve, but not as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Remember that resurrection is God's act, God's miraculous act of life in the midst of death. Pray for a resurrection experience this Easter, and for Fifty Days of Resurrection Living, beginning with Easter and culminating on the Day of Pentecost.

      Now we begin with a question: Why is Easter so important?

      C H A P T E R   O N E

      ____________________________________________________________________________________________

      THE IMPORTANCE AND MEANING OF EASTER

      It makes sense to focus on Easter. The resurrection is both the fulfillment of prophecy and the event that transforms disciples into apostles. Easter has historical meaning—the details are given in gospel narratives, each writer offering a version shaped by different nuances. Easter has indirect meaning that is also historical—Peter, who denies that he knows Jesus, later becomes a bold witness to the faith. These historical events take on mystical overtones, even within scripture itself, as in Paul's remembrance of an encounter with the Risen Lord:

      Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)

      Easter is foundational to the

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