A Liturgy for Endings and Beginnings
To supplement our Advent series, Words for the Beginning, we offer this simple worship outline as a way to make space difficult emotions during the holiday season, particularly grief around endings and anxiety around new beginnings. This could be offered as a slight alternative to a traditional Blue Christmas or Longest Night service.
You are welcome to adapt this liturgy to your context. Please use the following credit line for this service: “Liturgy by Rev. Anna Strickland | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.”
Supplies needed:
Advent candles and candle lighter;
Small candles such as tea lights, votive candles, or small tapers;
Small pieces of paper or notecards;
Pens, pencils, or markers;
Long matches, bamboo skewers, or other candle lighters for worshipers to light the small candles;
Bowl of sand to extinguish matches or skewers (optional).
Before the service:
Place the small candles and candle lighting/extinguishing supplies on the Communion Table. Place slips of paper or notecards and writing utensils in the pews or chairs.
GATHERING MUSIC
Play soft music as people gather. For suggestions and a Spotify playlist, see our music suggestions for the “Words for the Beginning” Advent series. You might also choose to use some of the song suggestions included under the opening and closing hymns in this service.
WELCOME & PASSING THE PEACE
Be sure to include in your welcome any instructions for remote worshipers if you are live streaming your service. For example,
During our service today, we’ll have an opportunity to share prayers by lighting candles and bringing written prayers to the Table. If you are joining us online, I invite you to grab a candle you can light along with us.
Conclude your welcome by inviting worshipers to pass the peace according to your tradition.
OPENING MEDITATION & CANDLE LIGHTING
Read the following communal litany as the Advent candles of hope, peace, joy, and love are lit.
Even in our endings,
fill us with hope for new beginnings.
Even as our minds race with anxiety,
fill us with peace that surpasses understanding.
Even in our deepest grief,
fill us with joy and laughter.
Even in a world of hate and fear,
fill us with your love, O God.
Come, let us worship Emmanuel, God with us.
OPENING HYMN/SONG
Suggested hymns and songs for this service include:
“Hymn of Promise” by Natalie Sleeth (1986) [↗]
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” by Isaac Watts (1719) [↗]
“God Moves in a Mysterious Way” by William Cowper (1774) [↗]
“Now the Day is Over” by Sabine Baring-Gould (1865) [↗]
“Break Our Hearts Again” by Paul Demer [↗]
“Beautiful Things” by Gungor [↗]
“God Will See Us Through” by Emma Ceurvels and Bryan Sirchio [↗]
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” by The Byrds [↗]
“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac [↗]
“The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell [↗]
“The Tree Song” by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan [↗]
SCRIPTURE READING | ECCLESIASTES 3:1-8
TIME OF REFLECTION & SILENT PRAYER
I now invite you to spend some time quietly reflecting on the seasons of your life. What seasons feel like they are coming to a close, and what seasons are just beginning? Let us offer the grief and anxiety that comes with the changing seasons of our lives to the God who is with us through it all.
Give a few minutes of silence or soft music for worshipers to reflect on the scripture and prompt.
SUNG RESPONSE
Suggested refrains include:
Dona Nobis Pacem (any setting)
Kyrie Eleison / Lord Have Mercy (any setting)
“Wait for the Lord” (Taizé)
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Holy God, we turn to you in each season of our lives.
For the seasons in our past that brought us joy, the seasons we deeply miss with longing in our hearts, God, we offer our gratitude. May our memories be sources of comfort rather than pain.
For the seasons in our past that are tender and painful, we ask your healing, O God. Liberate our hearts, minds, and spirits from trauma, and let us bury what must be buried.
For new beginnings that fill us with excitement, we give you praise. May we step into these new seasons with grace.
For changing seasons that bring anxiety for what the future may hold, we ask your peace. Fill us with hope, and help us navigate the way forward.
God, we come before you now with full hearts, offering you every part of ourselves: our grief, our pain, our joy, our anxiety, our gratitude. God, we bring it all.
As we bring these prayers forward to the Communion Table, in words and in candles lit in honor of the prayers too deep for words, we ask that you receive them, hold them, and answer them in your wisdom.
Gratefully we pray, amen.
I now invite you to bring your prayers to the Table. There are slips of paper and writing utensils in your seat for any prayers you would like to put in words. The ministers will collect these prayers at the end of our service and pray for them this week. If you are joining us online, I invite you to type your prayers into the chat.
For prayers that are too deep for words, or for prayers that you prefer to keep in your heart alone, we invite you to light a candle. We will hold each of these prayers, too, trusting that God knows the depths of our hearts.
Give time for worshipers to write their prayers and bring them forward. You may wish to play soft music during this time. When all worshipers have returned to their seats, close with a brief prayer, such as:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. Amen.
SUNG RESPONSE
Repeat the same refrain as was sung before the Prayers of the People.
SCRIPTURE READING | ISAIAH 43:16-21
WORDS OF COMFORT / AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
The first words of Genesis tell us that in the beginning, God was creating.
We believe in a God who is at work in all our beginnings.
In Revelation, we hear Jesus proclaim, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
We believe in a Savior who is with us through it all,
in every beginning, and in every ending that comes before.
And so from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, from the first day to the last, we are held by our God who knows our name.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN/SONG
Suggested hymns and songs for this service include:
“Hymn of Promise” by Natalie Sleeth (1986) [↗]
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” by Isaac Watts (1719) [↗]
“God Moves in a Mysterious Way” by William Cowper (1774) [↗]
“Now the Day is Over” by Sabine Baring-Gould (1865) [↗]
“Break Our Hearts Again” by Paul Demer [↗]
“Beautiful Things” by Gungor [↗]
“God Will See Us Through” by Emma Ceurvels and Bryan Sirchio [↗]
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” by The Byrds [↗]
“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac [↗]
“The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell [↗]
“The Tree Song” by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan [↗]
BENEDICTION
This benediction is by Rev. Sarah Speed from the Words for the Beginning Words for Worship.
As you leave this place,
may you have the wisdom to lean on one other.
May you have the courage to hold onto hope,
the compassion to do the good that is yours to do,
and the confidence to trust that God sees you as a blessing.
For in a world full of dead ends,
Advent invites us to begin again.
So start here.
Start now.
Start with love and begin again.
In the name of Christ,
our new beginning,
go in peace.
Rev. Anna Strickland
Creative Partner & Operations Support
Anna Strickland (she/her) looks for the Divine in the everyday like treasure in clay jars and first encountered God in the integration of her spiritual self and artistic self. She is a former teacher and college minister, a proud Texas Longhorn and graduate of Iliff School of Theology, a Baptist to the core ministering in ecumenical spaces, and a lover of chaos anchored by the belief that the Spirit is most active in the spaces between us.