All Saints Day has been celebrated since the 600s AD, and days to honor Christian martyrs started in the 300s. Depending upon your denomination or faith tradition, you may or may not have heard of it–or participated in a worship service where those who have died are remembered, and where we give thanks for those who have inspired us throughout the ages.
All Saints Day is a great time to remember family and friends who have died in the past year. It’s also a time to honor and remember people who have impacted our lives who have gone to be with God. While All Saint’s Day is traditionally on November 1st, you could celebrate this anytime around the beginning of November or as a part of your Thanksgiving celebration as a family or small group.
Here are a couple of PRAYER STATION ideas that you can do at home or with your entire Church Community or youth group.
CREATE A PRAYER TREE: you can use a Light Up Tree, like these found on Amazon or like in the
photo above. We used an artificial ficus tree that was already in the worship space and added white Christmas lights (soft not LED). We had a basket of sharpie markers of various colors and mailing tags from office depot/staples that already had string in them to use to tie them on the branches.
You can also create a tree with a few large branches (without leaves) stuck securely in a bucket and make tags out of colorful index cards or even print off various shaped leaves, punch a hole in the top and add some yarn…then these card tags or leaves can be added to the tree branches.
Have enough tags for everyone to have at least 2 apiece.
ALL SAINTS FAMILY TREE: The focus of the station is on the people who have encouraged our faith or the people who have inspired us to draw closer to Jesus
SIGN/Directions: Hebrews 12:1-8 Print out the passage and/or use it as your family devotion or as the basis of your sermon/talk.
If you do this as a family or small group, rather than as a prayer station, pass around a basket filled with tags and sharpie markers or pens for everyone to do this together.
You can also do this as a “Corporate Response” where your entire church community participates together rather than doing it individually as a prayer station. Have the tree set up in the front or back of the worship space and have the tags in the seats or pews or pass around a basket with the supplies.
FAMILY TREE (PRINT out this as directions for station or read aloud to have everyone participate together)
Consider all the people who have encouraged you to seek Jesus. Think about the people in your life, family, friends, teachers, youth leaders, neighbors, etc who have helped you along the way in your journey with Jesus or along your faith journey. These people might even be ones you’ve read about in books.
NOTE: if doing this as a corporate response, give people time to pray and time to write down their responses. Don’t hurry.
ACTION:
Part 1: WRITE their names on the tags and pray for them. Thank God for their lives and ask God to show you more of how they have impacted your life.
TIE THE TAG ON THE TREE (Or, have everyone come up to do this after the sermon, or following communion if done corporately. Or, they could do this on the way out of church)
Part 2: Now think of someone in your life who needs to know the love of God…who may need encouragement on his/her journey with Jesus. Write that person’s name on a tag and take it home with you. Hang it somewhere where you will be reminded to pray for that person. Ask God to help you inspire and encourage this person to know God better and ask God to help you to inspire others around you in the coming weeks.
This idea can carry on to THANKSGIVING and make it a THANKSGIVING TREE:
Continue the prayer tree idea …you can take off the names of the” saints” or you can add to the tags on the tree. If you used only one color of tags for the SAINTS tree, you might use a different color for the Thanksgiving tags.
SIGN/directions:
Philippians 4:6-7
Thanksgiving is a lost holiday in our culture…it sadly gets lost between Halloween candy and Christmas decorations and shopping. Yet we are called to give thanks as Jesus gave thanks.
So what are you thankful for today? What are some great things or some little things that you can see as gifts of God and thank God for today?
Give everyone time to pray and write.
ACTION :
Write your prayers on the tag and hang them on the tree. THANK Jesus for the things he has given you and ask Jesus to give you eyes to see the blessings and gifts he is giving you each week. and Ask God to help you be more grateful in the days ahead.
The Thanksgiving tree can be added to each day if you are doing it at home, or each time you meet if you are creating it with your small group or in your Worship community.
You can create the station in the narthex or entryway to the worship space or set up the tree in the sanctuary and add to it after communion or as you leave worship. Also, encourage people to write down what they are thankful for during the week and bring this to your worship gathering to add to the tree.
You could also have people bring in framed photos for their “saints” to share with each other. They could put the photos on a table or even near the altar to honor the people who have impacted their lives or the people they want to remember or honor on All Saints Day.
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Join Christine and Lilly for the next session of Facebook Live on Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
Transitions mean change. They are always challenging, sometimes painful. We want to hold onto the familiar and the comforting. The leeks and garlic of Egypt, all that sustained us in our past lives, beckon us. And no matter what our circumstances are at the moment, the one thing that seems obvious is that the future will be different and we need to adapt.
Change is usually marked by deliberate steps we take that say life is going to be different. Jesus marked his move into adulthood (at the age of 12) by staying behind in Jerusalem to ask questions of the religious leaders (Luke 3:46). He inaugurated his ministry with 40 days in the desert (Luke 4:2) and marked his transition towards the cross by a deliberate and determined walk towards Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). Jesus knew when it was time to say “Life is going to be different in the future, it is time to let go of the past and look towards the future.” He knew exactly how to prepare for those changes.
We are about to transition into a new season – in the church calendar out of Ordinary time, into Advent and Christmas, in the seasonal calendar out of spring into summer in the Southern hemisphere and autumn into winter here in the Northern hemisphere. Godspace is also going through transition as we say goodbye to Lisa and welcome to Melissa.
Many of you, I know are also transitioning into new stages in your lives. Some are returning to the workplace after a year spent at home. Others are starting new jobs, or facing the reality of loved ones you will never see again. Others are moving across the country or even across the world.
Whatever the changes we are facing transitions are never easy.
Transitions require us to identify the stability points that will not change.
The place to start as we face transition is not with – what is changing but what is not changing. What are the stability points that keep me strong throughout change?
Part of what I have reflected on over the last few weeks is the foundations of my faith in the goodness of God, the bedrock of my life that I know should not change. I need the security of knowing that not everything will change. I need to be able to stand firm in my faith as well as in my important relationships.
I wish we talked more about the stability of practice. Regular daily, weekly and yearly practices that restore our bodies, our souls and our spirits are essential for all of us especially during transition seasons and I don’t think we realize how much the loss of these impacts us. What are the practices that stabilize our lives as the world around us changes? How do we get ready for the winter blasts? What practices store up spiritual food for the dark seasons that always seem to accompany transition times?
Question: What do you need to hold onto that will strengthen your faith and beckon you towards God’s love?
Transitions require deliberate steps towards change.
It is easy to settle into the familiar patterns of the past and not consciously work towards the changes God wants us to make. Routines provide comfort for us and when they change we are often disoriented and destabilized. Suddenly there are lots of new options out there. We don’t know what we should do. It is easier to look back than to look forward. Deliberately working towards change is a very important and at times painful journey.
Question: What do we long for that we should let go of?
Transitions require the creation of new boundaries and new rituals.
When Tom and I stepped down from the leadership of Mustard Seed Associates about five years ago we embarked on a major remodel in our house. As part of that remodel I moved the desk in my office so that it is not longer the focal point. My space became first a sacred space and secondarily a work space. It was part of the transition, part of the establishing of new boundaries and new rituals and one of the best decisions I ever made. It provided a new environment that has become more precious over the years.
Then we went on a major trip for our 25th wedding anniversary, taking 6 weeks off to travel Europe, visit some of our favourite people and places and set boundaries around what had been and what was to come. We both came back refreshed, renewed and ready to start on new things.
As we face yet another major transition we are once more remodelling – this time our basement apartment which has hardly been touched since the 1970s. In the process we are losing a large storage room and so I need to throw out items I will never use again – clothes, boxes of material, old books, and who knows what else that is hidden in the recesses of that room. It’s painful but necessary and in the long run will be liberating.
Question: What changes may be necessary in your physical environment to prepare for the spiritual changes ahead?
Transitions mean listening
One of the hardest aspects of transitions can be the need to listen not just through our rituals and rhythms but also through our bodies and through the bodies of our companions. Our health, our age, our changing abilities and the changes going on in the lives of those we are responsible for – like elderly parents, children and grandchildren, friends and house mates – are all part of the reality of change. It’s easy for us to resent limitations when God is saying “embrace them”. We need to listen to such changes and accept the new boundaries they may impose on us as gifts from God. Sometimes we need to grieve for what we or our loved ones are no longer capable of. Sometimes we need to gain new perspectives on all of life.
Question: What change in your health or health of family members is a major consideration in your response to the transitions you are facing?
Transitions require space and time for dreaming new dreams.
Transition time is busy time. It is easy to fill our days without really thinking about the future. Sometimes the dreams that moved us towards transition seem to get lost in the process.
We need to take to time to breathe, to sit still and reflect. Clearing our calendars for a season, going on retreat, taking time to allow God to renew and refocus us is essential.
Question: What space is necessary for dreaming new dreams for the future?
Transitions require companions for the journey.
As part of our transition five years ago, I engaged with a new spiritual director and a life coach to help me move into this new season of my life. I also read a lot and sort the counsel of a broad array of friends and wise counsellors. I had lots of ideas that I think are from God but realize that I cannot move into the journey God has for me without help. Some of those ideas have been lost and will never be fulfilled, others are slowly coming to fruition.
As we head into transition again, I need to take time for the same kind of advice and discernment. We all need companions who can walk beside us, as well as those who can guide and help direct us into new seasons of life.
Question: Who are the companions and advisors that help you through transition?
Transitions cannot be rushed.
When I go through major transition season I always hope for a brief, though sometimes painful phase and then hope everything will settle down again without too much hassle. However I know from experience that transitions usually take months if not years It is easy to get impatient, to try to give birth prematurely. This is not a season to hurry through. The season between conception and birth is essential. It should be savoured and even after, there is a long and sometimes slow season of growth until maturity.
Question: How have we you to hurry the transition process and tried to give birth prematurely?
What is your response?
Sit and reflect on the transitions in your own life. What is God saying to you at this time that could help you through the days ahead?
Bundle and save on our updated and new resources for Lean Toward the Light This Advent & Christmas! Choose from several bundle versions, conveniently available either to ship to you or download.
by Lisa DeRosa,
Today’s post is bittersweet at best! I have finished my work at Godspace as Daniel and I move to California in a couple of weeks. While I am sad to say goodbye to helping Christine facilitate, create, and edit all that is Godspace, my heart is full of gratitude for this incredible opportunity! I am blessed by the writers and am inspired by their work. There were moments that I knew I received the post at the right time to be able to connect with God in that exact moment. I hope you experienced that with the posts on Godspace as well.
This community of writers is unique, gifted, and truly points me to Jesus. The encouragement and support I received for the work that I did were just beyond what I experienced in other workplaces. Though we communicate over email and the occasional Zoom call, I feel closer to them than folks that I physically worked with in office buildings of my past. Thank you to each individual writer that touched my heart and helped to draw me closer to Jesus. I am eternally grateful and will miss working with you!
My greatest thanks and gratitude goes out to Christine and Tom Sine who not only allowed me to work with them over the last 2+ years, but provided an amazing home and community for us while we lived in Seattle. We plan to carry the legacy of hospitality and spiritual practices that we learned with us to our family and friends in California. Not to mention some yummy recipes and gardening tips! There are so many things that I will miss about our time together, but I hold the memories near and dear to my heart. I could not ask for a better work environment of WiFi that reaches outside in the beautiful garden, coffee and tea prepared for me by the hospitable Christine, and countless hours of petting Goldie (the Sine’s golden retriever) while editing posts. Many, many blessings! I could go on and on, but like the acceptance speeches during award ceremonies, the music comes on and it is time for me to end.
Thank you, all, for the gift that Godspace is and continues to be as it provides ways to love God, love people, and love creation more and more each day.
The Spirituality of Gardening Online Course is available for 180 days of access for only $39.99. This interactive course includes video sessions with Christine Sine as well as 8 other guest gardeners. Visit our store page for more information.
Join Christine and Lilly for the next session of Facebook Live on Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
by Christine Sine
This last week I was asked to do an endorsement for a book on grief and gratitude. It is the most impacting book I have read for a long time and I can hardly wait for it to be published. Part of what it made me realize is that we cannot talk about gratitude without also talking about grief. We cannot develop effective rituals for expressing gratitude without creating equally powerful rituals for processing grief.
I can’t introduce you to the book yet, but I can introduce you to an article which the author gleaned from. It has not only resulted in me asking important questions of myself but also led to important discussions between my husband and I about the things in our past that we have not properly grieved and became an important part of our last Facebook Live discussion. It is not just about grieving for what we have lost in the pandemic either. Most of us hold huge wells of unexpressed grief inside us because we live in a culture where grief is unwelcome, something we need to get over quickly. We are ashamed to grieve. As a consequence we are prone to addiction, depression, violence, suicide, possibly cancer, heart disease and I would add PTSD.
The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend towards cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible. (The Geography of Sorrow – Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses – by Tim McKee)
So a few important gems I picked up from the article –
First – rituals of grieving should be communal. This doesn’t mean we don’t go off and weep in solitude, but after we do we should be welcomed back into a group where we can pour out and empty our sorrows together in an environment of comfort and mutual support. I love the rituals of using a cup that Lilly Lewin regularly introduces us to. She uses these in the Thinspace Nashville services she conducts each week as well as for her personal practices. These are the types of practices we all need to help us maintain the grif/gratitude balance.
In healthy cultures one person’s wound is an opportunity for another to bring medicine. But if you are silent about your suffering, then your friends stay spiritually unemployed.
In Navajo culture, for example, illness and loss are seen as communal concerns, not as the responsibility of the individual. Healing is a matter of restoring hozho – beauty/harmony in the community. The Geography of Sorrow – Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses – by Tim McKee
Second – we should approach grief with reverence, engaging it, sitting with it, mulling it over and recognizing it is worthy of our time . I think this is particularly important at the moment. We are all coming out of the pandemic with a load of grief weighing us down. We are encouraged to feel we should get over it quickly, get back to normal and enjoy life again. Grief is seen as something to be ashamed of, not something to embrace. It is easy to dismiss the need for rituals of grief especially as the consumer culture hypes up for the Christmas season. After all isn’t Christmas meant to be “the happiest season of all?”
Here are a few of my suggestions on rituals that can help us process our grief and move towards gratitude in the coming months:
- Sit around the table with your family or a few close friends and talk about those things from the past that still need to be grieved about. Just talking about these together can bring a measure of healing. Discuss other ways that you could support each other as you process your grief.
- Plan a celebration for All Saints’ Day or Day of the Dead coming up at the beginning of November. Celebrating, grieving and giving thanks for those who have gone before are all interwoven in these important days on the church calendar. I love the ribbons of remembrance that our church creates every year. We all have an opportunity to write the names of our loved ones on ribbons that later are woven around the altar rail or hung around the church.
- Plan a Blue Christmas celebration. Here on Godspace we provide a growing set of resources to help with this celebration. Last year we participated in a powerful and extremely meaningful online Blue Christmas service where we interwove liturgy, creativity, scripture and music together.
- Plan regular retreat days over the next few months to help you slow down, grieve and find that much needed balance between grief and gratitude. Part of the wonder of the Advent and Christmas story which we will talk about in the upcoming retreat Walking In Wonder Through Advent is the recounting of both joy and tragedy. If you follow the liturgical calendar you know that December 28th is Holy Innocents Day when we commemorate the execution of the innocent, male children in Bethlehem as told in Matthew 2:16. It is an uncomfortable day that I always want to skip over, but this year I know it is worthy of remembering. So many innocents have died in the last year, not just from COVID but from hunger, disease, violence and natural disasters. This story gives us the foundations for grieving our own losses. It is just as easy for us to skip over the tragedy because of our desire to focus on the joy. This year we need to make space for both.
- Listen to Leonard Cohen’s incredible song Hallelujah which I listen to regularly to help me process some of my grief burden.
Journal about your grief feelings.
Read Psalm 130 or similar psalm that begins with grief and ends in praise. Sit in the presence of your feelings of grief and allow God to bring healing. As I did that this week this simple poem grew in my mind:
When tears are closer than praise,
God’s love still surrounds me,
Jesus still comforts me,
The Spirit still dwells within.
When tears are closer than praise,
I sit and welcome them into my soul.
My trust is in you O Eternal One,
I put my hope in your transforming love,
And wait for you to wash away my tears.
Christine Sine October 2021.
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To help you find the balance between grif and gratidue this Advent season consider joining us for our upcoming virtual retreat.
Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
Anther beautiful contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756 with additional notes below:
“Watching, Waiting, Hoping” Music and Lyrics by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“On Christ the Solid Rock” Public domain hymn, arrangement and additional verse by Kester Limner
Shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Stay With Me” Performed and arranged by Kester Limner and Andy Myers
Words and music by J. Berthier, copyright 1982 by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Kyrie” original composition, Words and music by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY).
“Were You There” Traditional Black American Spiritual
Arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons license, attribution (CC-BY)
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Christine Sine
Yesterday, outside my office window what I call my sentinel tree shone brilliantly in the early morning sun, giving me a stunning display of red and gold that reminded me of why I love this season. It’s time to get out and collect some leaves and decorate them to display on the dining room table I thought. So I pulled up this post from a couple of years ago to instruct me and got to work. I thought you might like to join me in this fun, creative practice so decided to repost it here – it is designed for autumn but could easily be adapted to spring :
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I love this changing of the seasons and once again I wanted to incorporate it in a special way into my spiritual observances and those of our community. I wanted to relax and have some fun and invite you to join e once again. Reading this article about the consequences of loss of play in our lives made me realize how important it is for all of us to incorporate fun, playful activities into our spiritual lives whenever possible. Writing The Gift of Wonder and engaging in some of the exercises I discuss throughout the book has similarly encouraged me.
A couple of years ago our community members all painted leaves as an autumn spiritual practice. We plan to do it again this year. It is a great way to give thanks for the changing seasons and richness that they bring to our lives.
SUPPLIES
Autumn leaves
Paint pens
Mod Podge Water Based Sealer – I like this high gloss one. It makes the leaves look shiny and they last for a good couple of months.
I had fun collecting a bunch of different shapes and different colours, delighted as I did so at how awesome it was to notice something I had not noticed for a long time. The different shapes and sizes, the vibrant, and sometimes fading colours of autumn, the poignant reminder that all things have a season, was life giving. Some of the leaves I immediately sealed with Mod Podge water based sealer, but most of them I pressed for a couple of days and then laid them out with my paint pens for everyone to admire and then decorate.
I suggested people reflect on the question In the changing seasons what am I hoping for, what am I grateful for? It was good to both acknowledge the change that is rapidly approaching as we enter the festive season and talk about our hopes, expectations and gratitudes. Just expressing these out loud can help make them a reality.
Leaf painting is not as popular as rock painting, but there are a lot of people out there giving it a go so I printed out some examples from Pinterest, to inspire us. I was amazed at both the creativity that emerged and the inspiration for the future that was expressed.
The nice thing about this is that you don’t need to wait for autumn. Those of you in the southern hemisphere could devise a similar exercise with emerging spring leaves. Or you might like to do a leaf rubbing in your journal while you sit quietly and reflect on your leaf. There are a huge range of possibilities, all of them fun!
One person drew a pattern of concentric circles on her leaves, expressing her desire to become more centred over the coming months. Another copied some of the colourful patterns in the photos I provided, finding relaxation and rest in the calm of the exercise. Another drew a picture of their hopes for their family on one side of a leaf and of their desires for their ministry on the other. I painted along the leaf skeletons, some with lines others with dots, feeling as I did so that my hopes and expectations for the coming season are not fully formed.
At the end we coated our leaves in Mod Podge water based sealer. It brought back the vibrancy of the colours and kept the leaves a little more flexible than the acrylic sealer did. I laid my leaves out on the dining room tableland they lasted well through Thanksgiving, providing me with a reminder of my need to continue thinking about my hopes and expectations for this season.
What is your Response?
What are your hopes and expectations for the coming festive season? Is there a fun, creative and reflective exercise that you could plan over the next few days that would help you to think about these? Is there something you could do to help you focus on your hopes and expectations for the future?
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Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
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