fall stations

we used some stations on sunday evening. here are the texts . you will have to provide your own apples, leaves, pumpkins, and tea lights though!

apples


these invitations to “taste and see”, have started life, as blossoms on a branch, been fertilized by a passing, unsuspecting insect, been watered by rain, and ripened by sun. their promise is only released by sinking our teeth into its yielding skin. they lay there awaiting our decision.


God waits for us. taste and see that the Lord is good!



“God of patience. sorry for my reluctance to “sink my teeth” into you. thank you for your invitation to come to you. help me lift my leaden limbs to praise you, help me discover all the infinite varieties of your goodness….

amen”


pumpkins


outrageous, ridiculous, in their bulbous orangeyness! designed for our delight by the God who is always communicating through his creation. waiting to be appreciated, hollowed out, turned into pumpkin pie or jack o’lanterns. what do I want to “make” of God? hollow him out? turn God into something else? something more convienient or manageable? or, am I OK with the outrageous God who comes to us, as one of us, ridiculous, despised, rejected?


“God of outrageous creation. sorry for my tendency to see you as some kind of commodity, to make use of you on my own terms. sorry for my refusal to let you be fully God, for my attempts to make you in my image, instead of being content to be made, and to be being made, in yours. thank you for the exuberance of your creation, the variety, and the strangeness. help me to allow you to grab my attention and remind me of your presence in myriad ways….


amen”


leaves


once adorning the branches of a hundred trees, once the lungs of a city, now lie scattered, sometimes tar-spotted, their task fulfilled. basking in the glory of a job well done. only to be replaced next year by their younger greener thrusting cousins.


attitudes and behaviours which felt as comfortable as a pair of old jeans, may now be inappropriate in the light of who and whose we are. listen to Paul,
“everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.”


things that once served us well in our relationship with God; which of them are no longer needed? which of them need to be retained? which revitalized?


“God of the new creation. help me to allow the things I no longer need to fall to the ground like spent leaves. help me to see what those things are, and to be willing to let them go. help me to take up those things that are of you, that initially may feel strange and awkward, like a new, unfamiliar piece of clothing…


amen”



lights


in the time of shortening days, of lengthening darkness, we are called to live as children of light.


take a tea light.


Jesus doesn’t force us to walk in his light. he invites us. how do I respond to him when he claims, "I am the world's Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in."?


lighting the tea light is a choice.


“God of light, whose son is the light of the world. help me to always walk in his light and to allow his light to shine into and through me, that others may be drawn to you the source of true light….


amen”