Seasonal Calendar - Introduction - under development
Our Seasonal Calendar of Worship Opportunities, Community Celebrations and Awareness Days emerged from our 2019 Rural Worship Worskhop. You can read more about the ideas that were discussed at this event here As we saw, in so many ways rural worship is truly missional. Large proportions of our rural communities enjoy coming together for celebrations of the main Christian and farming festivals held throughout the year, and many also enjoy joining in celebrating the many aspects of community life and appreciate opportunities to come together in remembrance of special people and events. For each month of our Worship Calendar we have brought together a range of opportunities for both worship and other church and community activities spanning Christian and farming festivals, not forgetting our coastal communities and connections to fishing and the sea, rural tourism, days for focusing on particular aspects of nature and the environment, community and cultural events and rural social issues. For the various festivals and events we have tried to include links to further information and to liturgies and other resources where we have them. Some festivals will lend themselves to an act of worship and where we have them, we have included links to liturgies used by colleagues, including some examples used for local events including tree blessings, a cricket tour, Agri shows, a wartime commemoration etc and these can be found on our website here https://www.devonchurchesruralforum.org.uk/resources-for-churches/liturgies-and-prayers-for-rural-communities/blessing-the-community/ and, where appropriate, as links on the individual months of our calendar. There are other opportunities not ties to a particular month which can of course be incorporated into any local calendar. Do let us know how you get on!
As well as liturgical services, events that could be considered might include:
Further Resources Ploughshares and First Fruits – A Year of Festivals for the Rural Church by Chris Thorpe Landscape Liturgies – Resources to celebrate and bless the earth by Nick Mayhew-Smith with Sarah Brush Rachel Summers; "Wild Worship: Discovering God Through Creation." "Wild Lent: Discovering God Through Creation" and Wild Advent: Discovering God Through Creation." "Crafts for Creative Worship: A Resource and Activity Book for Parishes." by Jan Brind and Tessa Wilkinnson. "Creative Ideas for Wild Church." by Mary Jackson and Juno Hollyhock. Diocese of Norwich: "Wild Church Toolkit" "Forest Church: Earthed Perspective on the Gospel." by Cate Williams.
The Calendar will probably always be a work in progress, and new ideas can be added, and most importantly, we hope that you, our readers, will send us samples of liturgies or activities that you have used so that we can include them for others to benefit from. We hope you may find this section of our website helpful. |