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Instructions for use
From worship to the arena of daily life
The Call to Discipleship is an invitation to walk with Christ twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week, 365 days a year. Creating memorable contexts for uplifting the Call to
Discipleship will inspire a lasting impression of the actual commitments made. Corporate
worship is a key place to equip and energize children, youth and adults for faithful
living. As you do your overall planning, you may want to consider integrating each faith
practice as a theme for a worship service. On the following pages, you will find resources
for inviting the congregation to formally respond to the Call and engage more fully in
each practice. There is a reproducible two-page resource for each practice that includes:
 A rite of commitment - a
responsive litany of prayers that identifies the practice as fundamental to the Call as it
invites participants to make a personal commitment to nurture this practice in daily life.
Suggestions for
home-based faith conversation and activities to help families of all ages, stages, and
configurations nurture each practice.
A sampling of resources
to lend support to those you may wish to promote or display from your own church library.Ready
to copy and distribute
You will maximize the impact of this tool if you utilize and distribute them during
worship services. You might also consider using them for Sunday school openings, retreats,
small group meetings, direct mailings, etc. The camera-ready copy for each resource folds
to a 11 x 4.25 inch format. It is designed to be a bulletin insert, with the logo for Call
to Discipleship standing out above the top of the bulletin.
As you make your overall plans for your Call for Discipleship, you will want to decide
when it will be most appropriate to use these resources. They may be used over a period of
seven weeks, once a month or within any time frame you choose.
Within the context of worship
Consider the theme and flow of the service in which you are choosing to uplift a
particular faith practice. Position the rite of commitment to follow a moment of
inspiration about the Call and the practice you are highlighting. Consider the following
possibilities:
As a conclusion to the
service of the Word, following the sermon and prior to the hymn of the day.
Just prior to the
offertory prayer. When used here, one of the offertory prayers fol-lows the litany.
As part of an expanded
dismissal rite. The blessing by the pastor and the dismissal by the assisting minister
together with the people's response would follow the litany.
Note: These litanies have not been prepared as a substitute for the prayers of the
people. The scope of these litanies does not allow for the range of concerns which these
prayers need to address.
Making the connection to baptism
You may want to set the stage for each rite of commitment with a reference to Baptism as
the most fundamental Call to Discipleship. You may even want to incorporate a candle
lighting ritual (using small battery-operated or wax candles for each participant to
hold.) to heighten the affect. The following litany may be used to preface each rite.
Note the optional suggestions to accommodate it's placement in the worship service.
LITANY
P As Lutherans, we consider Baptism our initial call to discipleship. Through the
waters of baptism, we are pardoned from sin and marked with the cross of Christ to grow in
Christian faith and community. The lighted candle celebrates our call to let our lights so
shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify our father in heaven. As
baptized children of God and disciples of the living Christ, let us proclaim, “May
our lights so shine!”
Response options:
C May our lights so shine! or
P ... let us stand in community and profess our faith in the words of the
Apostles' (or Nicene) creed.
C I believe... or
P... let us sing, “Shine, Jesus Shine.” (WOV 651.
Other intergenerational or age appropriate songs of commitment like “This Little
Light of Mine” could be used instead.) |
