New beginnings

Group, Sep/Oct 2002 by Case, Steve

A back-to-school worship service that marks an important milestone for teenagers and points them toward a year of hope and possibility

Back-to-school time spurs raucous celebration among parents and blowout sales at retail stores. It's also a time of rapid and volcanic change for your teenagers. Some of them may be so bored with summer that they can't wait to get back. Others have been dreading it since the last day of school.

This youth-led worship service will help them celebrate this marker moment in their lives and will point them toward hope, The service includes "A Ceremony of Beginnings" that offers two optional activities.

the service

Begin the service with music. Choose a song that has a "something-is-about-to-happen" feel to it. I've used "Make a Joyful" by the David Crowder Band (from the album All I Can Say) and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2 (from the album The Joshua Tree). responsive reading

responsive reading

(It's best if you don't have to print out this reading for your kids. Part of the idea is that they already know what the responses are supposed to be, so they can respond without having to read it.)

Leader: The Lord be with you.

People: And also with you.

Leader: The Lord is my shepherd.

People: I shall not want.

Leader: God is great.

People: God is good.

Leader: Love is patient.

People: Love is kind.

Leader: Now I lay me down to sleep.

People: I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Leader: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

People: Praise him all creatures here

You can add well-known refrains/responses that are unique to your church, but use only their first lines.

Then say something -like: This school year is not just another school year. You're not headed back to the same old school to see the same old teachers and eat in the same old cafeteria. That's not going to happen. This school year is the beginning of something new-the same way that a second child is not born into the same family as the first child. A first child is born into a family that has no children. A second child is born into a family that has experience. You're beginning a new year. Everything is brand-- new...as long as you choose to see it that way.

Say: Jesus did not say, "I come so that all things can uh... pretty much the same as they always have been." Jesus said, 'I come so that all things can be new." we're about to read some Scripture passages-as we do, think about the "beginnings" represented by each one. Like the first day of school, new beginnings require only that you keep going.

scripture reading

If your adult volunteers are leading this service for your group members, have them stand in a circle around the young people. Have them read the verses one at a time without pauses between them-the transitions between readers should be quick and seamless. (Option: If you have a drummer in your group, practice reading the verses with a beat in the background. A wastebasket will work if you don't have a drum.)

Reader: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Reader: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Reader: So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Reader: Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

Reader: The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation."

Reader: Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been bom to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Reader: Then Pharaoh's daughter saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.

Reader: But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

Reader: Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, "Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me."

Reader: Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."