Closing
Activity time: 15 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Leader Resource 3, Creating the Closing Worship
- Taking It Home handout
- Chalice, candle and lighter, or LED battery-operated candle
- Stand or table space for the chalice
- Decorative covering for chalice stand
- Newsprint, markers, and tape
- Optional: Copies of Singing the Living Tradition, the Unitarian Universalist Association hymnbook or words to your chosen song
- Optional: Keyboard or drums for musical accompaniment
- Optional: Recorded music and player
Preparation for Activity
- Prepare a welcoming space, including comfortable seating arranged in a circle around a small table with a chalice at its center.
- Decide on the order of worship for the closing and plan how you will include a contribution from all small groups. Use Leader Resource 3, Creating the Closing Worship, to help you plan.
- Write an order of service on newsprint. Here is a sample to adapt:
- Opening words
- Chalice lighting
- Retelling the story
- It Happened in the Desert
- Telling Ishmael's Story
- Responses to God's Actions
- What Does this Story Tell Us About Ourselves?
- Meditation/prayer
- Music
- Closing words
- Make copies of Taking It Home.
- Optional: Recruit a musician to teach and/or accompany the song.
Description of Activity
Create a worship service, weaving together contributions from all of the breakout groups. Do not over-script the worship service, but rather create a worshipful "container" to hold all of the insights, thoughts, feelings, creations, and contributions of participants. At the end of the worship, extinguish the chalice and read the words of Elizabeth Selle Jones, Reading 456 in the hymnbook, or choose a benediction or closing words familiar to participants. Distribute Taking It Home.