There are a whole array of wonderful packages to curate a beautiful worship experience for every season. Lent begins Sunday so those materials have already been acquired. Or not. Bulletins have most likely already been printed.

This is a post for those pastors that are still up on Saturday night, unable to sleep, because it feels like there is something missing in what has been planned.

Here are 5 small things that might not even need to appear in the bulletin. The psalm reading can be swapped for an alternate translation. A sheet of music provided to your super-capable-ready-for-anything musician. A reading is added. A silence is included that is not scripted. There are small things that can be done that might change the entire experience of worship at times like these.

Here are five such possibilities.

ADD A LIVING PSALM

Maren Tirabassi curates this collection (for which I’m an occasional writer) with current adaptations exploring the traditional psalter. You can find each one of the lectionary, newer and older versions are offered.

Living Psalms

ADD A BLESSING SONG

After attending Ash Wednesday worship at my little Lutheran Church here in Alaska, this song has been in my head. We sang it twice in that service and I lost myself in this prayer both times. There are so many good people leading people in song right now, reminding us that we need a songbook for our hope. There needs to be songs that carry us like prayer, that adhere to our souls and give us courage long after that benediction is offered.

There are so many songs that could be used for this. I love Taize and there are so many gifts from the Iona Community, but there are lots of songs that might remind us that might surround us with God’s abundant grace. These songs could be sung in place of a spoken affirmation or pardon. Or whatever your tradition might call that blessing that follows confession. Consider a song for the resistance and sing with the full glory of God. It can change every week. Or the congregation can set about learning one song that can be sung when it feels like the world is falling apart again. I would be inclined to use this song that has been sung all over the streets of Minneapolis. It feels like a good song for Lent.

ADD A KYRIE

Make the affirmation/pardon spoken but sing the lament. There is so much to lament that it might be enough to sing just these words. Omit the there are a ton of versions which Natalie Sims has collected all into one place full of all kinds of kyries.

ADD A CONTEMPORARY TEXT

I worshipped at Judson Memorial Church in seminary when I could and their worship at that point included an ancient testimony from the Bible and a modern testimony from something else. It was often something scholarly because that was who was sitting in the pews. These were smart people who read big words in the shadow of New York University.

A recent bulletin on their website reveals this practice is still alive. The modern testimony from just last week was a poem from Lucille Clifton. Poetry would be my inclination and there are some wonderful resources to connect for lectionary poetry including this old blog, the many gifts to the Englewood Review, the weekly poems offered by Journey with Jesus and the wealth of wonders at Art & Theology. It could also be where wise words in Substack essays and theology text books appear.

For congregations that read more than one text, this modern testimony could appear before the Gospel is read. It doesn’t need to be the last word but part of the conversation. Part of our wondering about what it means to testify to the goodness of God right now because frankly we need contemporary words to speak to where we are right now.

ADD MORE SILENCE

There is a lot of talking in the world. There is a lot of noise. We are not alone in our houses as we were only a few years ago when the pandemic was rampant. These words were written then reminding us what silence can do. And should do. A lot has changed since then. Still, we need more space to be silent… and church people often struggle with this. Most church silences are a brief pause. Don’t do that. Let it be the kind of silence that has to be settled into so that attention turns inward toward the divine.

Start at 90 seconds the first week and increase 30 seconds each week. This could happen as part of the confession or after the sermon or after the readings. There could even be a series of silences throughout the service, smaller pauses to leave space for holy listening. Tiny spaces for embracing more quiet wonder and greater hope.

What would you add? What other small changes might be added to shift our attention and hope for times like these?