Worship and Devotional Resources

Here is a collection of worship resources that offer you help during the Lenten season.

Alive to God in Jesus Christ
I Believe: 40 Daily Readings for the Purposeful Presbyterian

Item # 9781571531469
$12.95

Presbyterians Today 2009 Lenten Devotional Guide

Conversations with Jesus
By Eugenia A. Gamble

Walk with Jesus through his life, ministry and death and listen closely to the questions he asks you. This devotional guide, produced by Presbyterians Today, contains meditations, prayers and Scripture readings for each day of Lent.

Item # 1211608012
1-9 copies $3.00 each

Out of the Abundance of the Heart: A Jubilee Journal

Dale Lindsay Morgan
The Gospel of Luke tells of Jesus’ long journey to Jerusalem. Dale Lindsay Morgan has created this journal so others can chronicle their journeys with Jesus. The journalist may make one entry a day for the 40-day season of Lent (or use it over a 40-week study of the 2008-2009 Horizons Bible study, Jubilee! Luke's Gospel for the Poor, by Dale Lindsay Morgan.

Newly priced at $2.50 each (a 50% savings), Out of the Abundance of the Heart is for both individuals and groups, such as PW circles and church school classes. This journal may be particularly meaningful during this time of global economic crisis.

PDS# HZN-08-105
$2.50

Jesus as Teacher

This new Bible study by well-known author and Christian educator Sara Covin Juengst looks at the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and explores the role of education in the body of Christ. This resource is ideal for celebrating the Year with Education, to use as a Lenten Bible study, or to use anytime during Sunday school classes. Each chapter is followed by questions for personal and group reflection.

$1.50 each for ten or more.
$2.00
PDS# 7035098602

Kneeling in Jerusalem

In a powerful and creative way, renowned author and speaker Ann Weems brings new insight into the Lenten season by providing seventy-one poems of inspiration. For example: Just when I thought, there would be no more light, in the Jerusalem sky, the Bright and Morning Star, appeared and the darkness has not overcome it.

With her intuitive and heartening poems, Weems takes the reader on a pensive journey through Lent and Easter. Recalling Easter as child, she says, "I remember the Easter egg hunts on green lawns and in our living room. I remember pastel dresses and patent leather shoes. I remember roast lamb with mint jelly. I remember the abundance of flowers and the overloaded Easter baskets. But most of all I remember the hot cross buns on Good Friday morning and going to church instead of school and the inevitable sermons on the last words of Jesus and wondering why, in the face of the cross and death, this day is called Good."

2009 One Great Hour of Sharing Lenten Devotion Guide    

This tabletop tent provides weekly devotions focusing on Lent leading up to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Download a single copy of the guide.

PDS# 1113809120
FREE

Many Presbyterian congregations participate in One Great Hour of Sharing, almost all of them during Lent. For many Presbyterians, exploring how to integrate discipleship with stewardship is a central issues, and OGHS provides an opportunity to make that connection. The following OGHS materials have a reflection/action focus pertinent to how your congregation may choose to approach Lent.

2009 Worship resources
2009 One Great Hour of Sharing Youth Resource
Children’s Resources Gracie’s Treasure and Treasure Map
Toolkit disc with automatic presentation that can serve as a minute for mission, a manual version that lets presenters add their own comments to a suggested script, a worship background, text and graphic resources

Learn more about the One Great Hour of Sharing.

The Transforming Moment

2009 Lent meditation guide

During Lent, we are called to journey into the wilderness with Jesus as our companion and guide. In the wilderness, we are confronted with the temptations of life in its complexity. In a society that routinely glorifies the seven deadly sins and uses temptation as a marketing device, it is easy to overlook the spiritually destructive, and often subtle, forms of temptation in our midst. While we may recognize the obvious temptations of greed and lust, the more subtle temptations that infect our spiritual commitments may elude us.

In recognizing our personal temptations, we gain the freedom to follow God fully and faithfully. Yet, we can face our temptations fully only when we trust that God is with us and that God will not abandon us in the wilderness of struggle and self-discovery. "Grace happens," for "while we still were sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).

Dangerous Love Worship Packet

Creative Resources for Lent and Eastertide  

This packet is part of a Sacred Seasons, a quarterly series of worship packets with a peace and justice emphasis from Seeds of Hope Publishers. Seeds of Hope, Inc., is a private, independent group of believers responding to a common burden for the poor and hungry of God’s world, and acting on the strong belief that biblical mandates to feed the poor were not intended to be optional. The group intends to seek out people of faith who feel called to care for the poor; and to affirm, enable, and empower a variety of responses to the problems of poverty. Special access to this packet is provided to friends of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

Gospel Portraits of Jesus: A Lenten Study     

This Lenten study explores the biblical names for Jesus and the titles for Jesus in the Gospels.

What can we learn about Jesus from the multitude of names he is given in the New Testament? Plenty! Welcome to a six-week course that will explore a number of the names and titles for Jesus that appear in the four Gospels, with some attention to relevant Old Testament passages.

Available from The Thoughtful Christian.

Reflections on the Lord's Prayer: A Lenten Study

Lent is an appropriate time to consider the prayer Jesus taught us to pray in a careful way. Participants will enjoy the many reflections and information the author provides. Each session concentrates on a major theme or phrase of the prayer in the hope that we will be renewed in our reflections during Lent and intentional as we pray this familiar prayer. This Lenten study does not follow the lectionary.

Well-known author Ellsworth Kalas has written a very fine Lenten study based on the Lord’s Prayer.  It is a six-session study, and the Leader’s Guides are authored by Carol Wehrheim.

Pausing on the Road to Jerusalem
Study pack

By Michael L. Lindvall and Christy Lang

This study is built around the Common Lectionary Gospel readings for the five Sundays in Lent and Palm/Passion Sunday of 2007. Participants who worship with congregations that follow the Common Lectionary will find that these lessons amplify their Sunday hearing of these same passages and the sermons preached on them. For others, these passages, selected by the Lectionary to explore the great themes of Lent, will offer a broad and varied set of studies fit for the season.

Available from The Thoughtful Christian.
$25.00

Liturgical Resources

Presbyterian Peacemaking Program

Responding to Torture
To Be Instruments of Gods Peace, Love, and Justice in a Broken and Shattered World: Resources for Responding to Torture.
Includes prayers, a devotional reflection and summaries of General Assembly statements

'Breathe In, Breathe Out'
Singer/songwriters and Presbyterians from Los Angeles, California, Tom Zehnder and Tim Gibbs Zehnder offer free use of their song “Breathe In, Breathe Out” for the Lenten/Easter months (February 1 – April 30, 2009). This includes the digital mp3 recording and lyrics. “May congregations have the blessing of a deepened Lenten journey this year,” says Tim Gibbs Zehnder.” Zehnder (their band name) will offer music leadership at the family camp week at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico this summer. Learn more about this musical duo. Email the band for licensing rates for use beyond the free time period.

• Servant Christ: A Litany
• Love One Another: A Retelling of the Arrest of Jesus According to the Gospel of John
• In Light of the Resurrection
• Easter Rap
• Easter Call to Worship

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program

Download the 2009 Lent worship resource

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance provides a compilation of past liturgies for you to use during the Lenten season. PDA extends a special thank-you to Presbyterian World Service and Development (Presbyterian Church in Canada) who has given us permission to use their Lenten worship resources.

Lenten and Easter Lectionary Commentary on Fair Food

Presbyterians from around the country compiled a variety of Lenten and Easter lectionary commentaries about the PC(USA)’s work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for fair food and human rights. Pastors, professors, and students connect Year C lectionary texts with this work.

Lectionary Commentary: Sixth Sunday in Lent, April 1, 2007
The Rev. Richard Williams, Campus Minister, Agape House, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Lectionary Commentary: Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 25, 2007
Andrew Nurkin, Presbyterian Seminarian, Yale Divinity School.

Lectionary Commentary: Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 18, 2007
Prof. Steve Friesen, Chair in Biblical Studies, University of Texas.

Lectionary Commentary: Third Sunday in Lent, March 11, 2007
Prof. Steve Friesen, Chair in Biblical Studies, University of Texas.

Lectionary Commentary: Second Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2007
The Rev. Matthew Lang, First Presbyterian Church, Des Plaines, Ill.

- Files marked with this icon can be downloaded in printable Adobe Acrobat format. This file requires the free Acrobat Reader. For best results, right-click the link (or click and hold for Macintosh), select " save target as" and save the document to your desktop for viewing and printing.