Initial Worship Plan

The following initial plan is based on the brainstorming that was done at the last meeting.




Prayer of Invocation & Praise--We celebrate God's presence with us today


Procession of Class of 2013 

Scripture: (A VOICE OVER)

Joshua 4:1-7

New International Version (NIV)

4 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, ³ and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

⁴ So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, ⁵ and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, ⁶ to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ⁷ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”
  
(12 Worship leaders and brick layers process on to stage,)

Welcome and Purpose:

Invocation Prayer:

Scripture:   Galations 5:  22-23
²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Prayer Litany--We (the gathered community) speak to God honestly about this moment
  (Use the concrete blocks to build foundation--teachers, officials, parents, ministers etc people who help built for you a foundation--they come forward as part of the litany and place a block.  The litany will use the fruits of the spirit to talk about your foundation and how you have honestly honored and or dis-ed it. )

Music/ARTWORK

Scripture:  Philippians 1:  3-11
³ I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
⁷ It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. ⁸ God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Prayers of Intercession-- We (the Senior Class prayers for 2014-16) pray for our community
  (This prayer can be led by 2-3 students)

Music/artwork

Scripture:  Jeremiah 29:11-13
¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Prayers of Blessing--We (the community) pray for the Senior Class
  (Laying on of hands kind of thing)

Music/ artwork

Scripture:
 Joshua 4:8-10

New International Version (NIV)

⁸ So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. ⁹ Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been^[a] in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.
¹⁰ Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua. The people hurried over,
 

Joshua 4:19-24

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁹ On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. ²⁰ And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. ²¹ He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ²² tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ ²³ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea^[a] when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. ²⁴ He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

Challenge:  WHat Do These Stones Mean?
  (Mark of Lisa?)

Act of Faith

Benediction
  

Baccalaureate

Highlands High School Class of 2013

The Highlands High School Class of 2013 Baccalaureate Planning Team met on Friday, April 26, 2013 after school in the Fellowship Hall of the Highlands United Methodist Church.

Those pressent were:

   Sydney Lindeman-student

   Brooke Hamilton-student

   Eric Peterson-student

   Nick Snider-student

   Jason Thome-student

   Maddie Gates-student

   Hanna Laskeyl-student

   Mark Caldwell-Reiss-representative of Fort Thomas Ministerium

What Happened At The Meeting:

*Baccalaureate is May 26, 2013 in the school auditorium

*Ideas and dreams for Baccalaureate were shared and discussed.  

Some ideas were:

       -"We really like using the candles"

      -"We also liked the screen painting that Parker Schell did last year.

      -Ideas for staging were discussed:

                 -we need a finish line and starting line to symbolize our end of high school and beginning of the future.

                -Ideas about using Rocks  to build a structure that symbolizes our accomplishments as a class as well as our future.

"Homework" assignments to have done for next meeting:

        -Be thinking of themes for the service.   We will share, discuss and finalize a theme at the next    meeting.

        -Hannah Laskey will make contact communication with the manager of the Auditorium--just      to give the manager a "heads up" about Baccalaureate.

 Next Meeting:

Will be Friday, May 3, 2012 after school in the Fellowship Hall of Highlands United Methodist Church.

Agenda:

       *Rev. Lisa Caldwell-Reiss will facilitate group discussion in developing the theme for Baccalaureate.

       *Begin to design and organize the various actions of worship that will make up the Baccalaureate Service.

If you have an questions please contact:

       Mark Caldwell-Reiss at ssierllewdlackram@yahoo.com

       Mr. Abdon at brandon.abdon@fortthomas.kyschools.us

Good Friday March 29, 2013

The Gathering

Music                                                                          Brent Reed, Amy Gilligham & David Zeng

Congregational

"Wonderful Cross" 

"Jesus Paid it All"

Vocal Solo (Brent)

"Jesus, Son of God"

Call to Worship 

Leader: What’s happened? Why are you here?

People: We have come because they have crucified our Lord.

Leader: Who has crucified your Lord?

People: The Roman soldiers, at Pilate’s command,

as requested by the Jewish leaders.

Leader: But I heard you yell “Crucify!” in the awful silence of your souls.

People: We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

— from The Suffering Servant: A Good Friday Service on Isaiah 53 by Tim Schuurman. Posted on Reformed Worship. http://www.reformedworship.org/

The Burdens

Naming the Bricks                                                                       Terry Webster

We are invited to take "bricks" located under our chairs  
and to add our own burdens to the label they bear.

Prayer                                                                                          Terry Webster

The Build

Stacking the Tower                                                         Mark CR

Mark will invite us to bring the "bricks" from our seats forward as the music plays. 
He will lift each brick up and show us the main label or burden it represents 
before placing it in the "jenga" type structure.

Our suggestions of burdens for the labels

Addiction     Worry     Forgiveness     Unspoken      Anxiety      Shame      Depression      Unemployment      Future      Finances     Doubt      Infidelity      Regrets     Infertility     Sin     Pride     Perfection     Grief    Too Busy     Gossip     Time     Difficult Relationships     Time      Greed      Fear      Exhaustion      Selfishness     Illness      Bullying

Musical Meditation                                                         Amy Gillingham

The Significance

Reading with John 10:11-18                                                            Jennifer Hall & Russell Noss

Jennifer Hall: 

Stones are what people wanted to throw at Jesus during his life.

Stones are also what surrounded him at the tomb

and through them he pushed his way back into life on the third day.

Could we ,

as we remember our Lord's death and see how he was crucified

by the action or the apathy of people like ourselves,

remember that it was for our sins he died?

Let us remember the wrong things in our life which burden us,

threaten each other and offend God.

And after we have recognized what these things are,

let us give them to God to take away.

For Jesus is the one who said, 

"Give me your burdens."

and Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

We'll be silent for a moment and then we'll sing, 

"We will lay our burden down"

and as we sing, we can, if we want to,

lay down the burdens of our hearts.

Musicians lead "We Will Lay Our Burden Down"

Listen to these words of Jesus, spoke directly to us:

Russ Noss:

I am the good shepherd

and I know my sheep

and I lay down my life for them.

There is no greater love than this

that a man should lay down his life for his friends

and you are my friends,

if you do what I have commanded.

Whoever believes in me,

I will never turn away.

Whoever has faith in me,

even though he or she dies, will live forever.

Now I am going to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God,

but I shall come back and take you to myself,

that where I am, you may be also.

------"Laying Our Burden Down" from Stages Along the Way: Worship Resources for Lent and Easter. Wild Goose Resources Group through GIA, 2000.

Musical Offering                                                                                   Chancel Choir, FCC

"Behold the Lamb!" (Larson)

The Story

Scripture Reading: Luke 23:26-549 (NIV)                  Peggy Horner, Ben Wilson & John Boling 

At the asterisks *, the candles on the table are extinguished one by one until only the Christ candle is still burning. Tallia Frye and Ryan Biers are the candle snuffers.

Peggy Horner:

As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.*

Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’

Then ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.*  

Ben Wilson:

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.*

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”*

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”*

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.*

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”*

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”*

John Boling:

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,

or the sun stopped shining.* And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.* Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.*

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”

When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.*

The Darkness

Musical Meditation with Scripture                                                         Amy Gillingham

"Quartet for the End of Time"  Messiaen

Scripture: Isaiah 53:4-6(NIV)                                                                   Amy Yaeger

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,


yet we considered him punished by God,


 stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, 

he was crushed for our iniquities;


the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
 

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

All the lights go out.

The Christ Candle leaves the room.                                                          Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye

The Fall

The Tower Falls                                                                                         Mark CR

The Rubble

The Christ Candle returns.                                                                        Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye

Lights come back up

Hymn                                                                             Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng

"Were You There"

Closing Reading                                                                                        Anna Hope Curwood

Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,

a nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.

Can such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word

when faith and love seem phantoms

and every hope absurd?

Yet here is help and comfort for lives by comfort bound,

when drums of dazzling progress give strangely hollow sound:

Life, emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,

can share in broken silence my deepest emptiness;

And love that freely entered the pit of life's despair,

can name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.

Christ, in our darkness risen, help all who long for light

to hold the hand of promise till faith receives its sight.
--#39 from Piece Together Praise. Brian Wren, Hope Publishing, 1995.

Closing Song                                                                 Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng

"Wonderful Cross" (reprise)

Benediction            

We will depart in silence, accepting the peace of God's presence, for no matter how dark the moment, Immanuel,  God is with us.