Year in Worship
Advent
The four Sundays prior to Christmas make up the season of Advent. The commercial, cultural calendar is busy preparing us for Christmas, but the church calendar prepares us for the coming of Christ – in both a baby born in Bethlehem and in the “second coming” of Jesus Christ at the end of the ages. The readings for worship are prophetic – news of judgment and warning, but through it the boundless grace and love of God, who comes to us in person, for the sake of a world God loves. Special music, themed children’s messages and fellowship often accompany our worship through these days.
Christmas Eve Services
3:30 pm ~ Candlelight Service of Lessons and Carols
Our joyful, traditional family Christmas Eve worship service. Filled with music and the favorite carols of the season, we hear the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, of the shepherd’s amazement and angel chorus celebrating the Son of God, born in our midst. Interspersed are short readings and poems. The West Denmark Choir joins in with the angels.
10:30 pm ~ Candlelight Communion Worship Service
Quiet, peaceful, intimate – a beautiful Worship Service celebrating the Nativity accompanied by guitar in candle-glow lighting.
Both services end with all those present lighting individual candles, dimming the lights in the sanctuary and singing Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright…
Christmas Program
Part of West Denmark’s beloved Christmas tradition is the family Christmas program and the Juletre, or dancing around the Christmas tree. The program itself is intergenerational, of late written by Pastor Linda and Christine Johansen and typically consists of Christmas carols, poems and songs by the Sunday School children, and an original nisse skit written by Christine Johansen – our own local authority on nisser activity. The program ends with a reading of the nativity story and singing Silent Night – a favorite Christmas carol. Then the chairs are put away and the lighted 15 foot tree is brought into the center of the room. One of the Happy Dane traditions is ring dancing around the Christmas Tree as carols are sung. Of course, coffee follows.
Lent
Lent is an old-fashioned, seemingly out-of-date observance. Its roots were catechismal – a 40 day period of instruction and preparation for those (primarily adults) preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil. Over the years its practices of self-reflection, self-denial, prayer, and meditation on scripture lost touch with their origin and became occasions for pious self-degradation. Instead of an intentional focus on God and instruction in the ways of Jesus, the focus turned inward – the deficits of human nature, our sinful state, our need for divine mercy.
Lent is more properly a time to appreciate the paradox of life that rises in the midst of death, hope that shows itself even in despair and fear, love and purpose that live on beyond us, beyond our abilities, beyond our own lives through the power of Christ’s cross and the love of God.
Lent is the March we experience in our lives – a mix of inevitable, untimely, unwanted ends, mortality, limitation and the steady, unpredictable, often unseen happening of new life and transcendence and joy.
Lent reminds us that life wins. Lent reminds us that hope is an inexorable force – breaking open cocoons, and seed husks, and hardened hearts, and frightened nights, and painful endings. The lesson of the cross is that love, the profound life force and spirit centered in God, finally wins.
Ash Wednesday
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday – a traditional liturgy in which Holy Communion is celebrated with the blessing and imposition of ashes. The cross shaped smudge of ashes is a reminder that “…you are dust, and to dust you shall return” … a connection to God, a connection to the earth, a connection to the cross of our salvation is a small, solemn ritual.
Mid-Week Lenten Services and Supper
Each week begins with a Lenten Soup Supper at 6 pm preceding the 7pm Worship Service. Meals consist of kettles of soup, sandwiches, bars, milk, and coffee provided by volunteers (sign-up). Confirmation students serve the meals and help with clean-up.
The Holden Evening Prayer setting shapes our worship. The theme for the five weeks between Ash Wednesday and Holy Week changes each year – in the past couple of years we have considered the work we do as vocations – work used by God for the sake of a world in need. We have considered the intersection of faith and science – how these two voices of truth speak in our lives, how we make sense of the dialog. Each week we hear from members of our congregation as they think out loud helping us see God working in the world and in our everyday lives. Music, prayer, candlelight and psalms assist our contemplation of faith.
Holy Week
Palm Sunday
Join in the traditional procession with palms. At West Denmark we wave Eco-Palms – grown and harvested in a sustainable way that protects the environment and allows hard-working palm harvesters to support their families … a sustainable development project of Lutheran World Relief.
Jesus enters Jerusalem in a kingly parade, riding a donkey – traditionally a royal mount – but weeps over the city that does not know the things that make for peace.
Maundy Thursday
Come for a Seder-style meal at 6:00 pm featuring roast lamb, ratatouille, rice, charoset (apple, nut and honey salad), boiled eggs, matzoh, bitter greens and sparkling juice.
Worship follows at 7:00 pm including Holy Communion as we hear the gospel story of the Last Supper and Jesus feeding his betrayer, his closest friends, and us. The cross is hidden, and the altar is stripped and left empty in preparation for these solemn, holy days.
Good Friday
A simple Fish Soup supper at 6:00 pm precedes the 7:00 pm Worship Service featuring the reading of Jesus’ passion, confession using the format of solemn reproach, and prayers for healing and hope. We hear of Jesus’ crucifixion and death and we depart in silence, awaiting ….
Easter
Worship at 8:00 am
Join us in festival celebration in praise and worship for the life given us through Christ in God’s mercy and enduring love. The tomb that held Jesus’ body is empty! He is not there, but has been raised to new life though the power of God. God has done this so that we, too, might be given life everlasting! Alleluia!
Children may participate in an Easter egg hunt on the way to breakfast at the Parish Hall.
Pentecost
At the beginning of summer, Pentecost is the 50th and final day of the Easter season. It celebrates the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and to all believers. Through the Holy Spirit we come to believe in Christ, we are given gifts to be used for the sake of all people – “the world in need,” and are inspired to be stewards of the environment and our fellow creatures.
The Holy Spirit is portrayed both as a dove and as flame, gentle and searing, it both moves within us and sends us out into the community.
The Season of Pentecost is the longest of the church year spanning summer and autumn until the beginning of Advent.
All Saints Day/ Reformation Sunday
Typically, Reformation is the Sunday we celebrate the rite of Confirmation for confirmands who have completed the course and requirements. All Saints commemorates those who have died in the past year, the loved ones we hold before God in memory and thanksgiving for the life of faith they exemplified.