Worship Orders of Service

Here are several recent Orders of Service from UUCGL that I put together. Each of these services was far more dynamic than the words on the page.

The service on February 3 was a collaboration with musician Reggie Harris and featured Reggie leading the choir and congregation in singing.

March 24 included a video clip from a TED Talk by Evelyn Glennie, a profoundly deaf woman who is regarded as the world's foremost percussionist, interactive questions about music for congregation members to talk with one another about, and an excerpt from a Bruce Springsteen song.

Finally, May 19 is the Coming of Age Celebration. I worked with this group in 2012-13 and put the OOS together with Teresa Putnam the Minister of Lifespan Faith Development.


I love experiential worship. Some of my favorite worship experiences have included a series of sermons and services using the movie Chocolat. Each Sunday we used a different film clip from the movie and touched on a relevant theme. We also made liberal use of different kinds of chocolate (fair trade, of course): bittersweet, Mexican hot chocolate, and others. We ended with a chocolate fountain as part of the concluding celebration.

Another worship experience that was incredibly moving and profound came after the BP oil tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. We passed out slips of paper with the names of various species impacted by the crisis and asked people to give voice to the lifeform named on their card. Worshippers were asked to lament, sharing how they had been impacted, and then asked to offer any messages they had for human beings from the perspective of their creature. Needless to say, it provided a level of engagement and relationship where people could truly sense their kinship with other beings.