Compiled from various resources.
Click here for a Blue Christmas service pdf download.
This complete one-hour service is ready to print and use.
It is a reflective service created for a December afternoon or evening.
16 readers (or double-up if fewer readers are available)
Preparation and set-up: The worship space is important. See suggestions on pdf download.
Order of Service (full ready-to-use service is provided above as pdf download)
Welcome “Why are we here?”
Gathering Words
Lighting the Christ candle
Call to Worship — from Isaiah 9
Opening Prayer
Reading Isaiah 40
Song/hymn How can we sing a joyful song? by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette
Poem The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver
Reflection — A thoughtful message for the occasion
One possibility– Mary – dramatised, by Ana Gobledale (written out, in full, on pdf download)
Life often overwhelms me. My boy is dead. Killed….
The story of the first Christmas is not really a happy story, but a story about life in the real world….
Reading Lamentations 3:1-3, 19-26 NRSV
Song/hymn
A Liturgy of Light & Remembering
The invitation is extended to anyone who wishes to come forward and light a tea candle in memory of a someone who has died or to recognize the pain of another type of loss.
Lighting first candle– to remember those whom we have loved and lost…
Lighting second candle– to redeem the pain of loss; the loss of relationships, the loss of jobs, the loss of health…
Lighting third Candle— to remember and give thanks for those who have supported and comforted us during our dark time…
Reading Matthew 5:3-12a
Song/hymn
Lighting fourth Candle—to remember our faith and the gift of hope which the Christmas story offers to us…
Prayer
Lord’s Prayer (optional)
Benediction
The light has splintered the darkness, Hope is ours once more….
Song/hymn Silent Night
Go from this holy time and space, filled with hope, peace and love, God’s gift to us all. Amen.
