One Great Hour of Sharing

This Sunday is One Great Hour of Sharing, a special Sunday celebrated by the UMC, the UCC, the PCUSA, the ABC, and several other Protestant denominations. It is a time to remember to live out our Christian love by giving out of our abundance to those in need.

At my church, we examined an experiment in giving. During last week's sermon, I gave out ten-dollar bills to four volunteers and asked that they give it to a needy person in our county. We talked about those experiences and a significant giving accomplishment in our church. Yesterday, we had a church conference that we called the Methodist Way, in which we brainstormed ideas for outreach. And we talked about the results of that meeting and introduced our new mission and vision statements, both of which have a missional focus.

Did your church celebrate One Great Hour of Sharing? What did you do to mark the occasion?

Worst Worship Innovations

• Liturgical poledancing


• Communion buffet


• Gym rope-climb to Heaven


• Grand Theft Auto III: Jerusalem Stories


• Blessing of the Sharks service


• Rant stations

Add your own in the comments.

All Saints' Sunday

For All Saints' Sunday, I constructed a liturgy from The Book of Worship. It consisted of an invocation and then the reading of the names while the bell was chimed. I asked if there were any other saints to remember, and there were several. I then asked if anyone would like to speak about the impact that these saints made on their lives. We closed with a prayer, again directly lifted from The Book of Worship -- which I have found, as a student pastor, to be an incredibly useful book.

Further thoughts from Beth Quick, Kim Matthews, Michelle Hargrave, and a prayer from Allan Bevere.


How did your church mark All Saints' Day/Sunday?

Altar Calls

For a class assignment, I went last night to a Baptist church to worship and observe how welcome the church is to visitors. At the end of the worship service, there was an altar call. The pastor called it that twice. The strange thing was -- there was no altar in the sanctuary. In fact, I can't remember ever being a Baptist church that had an altar. Which makes the Baptist practice of weekly altar calls a trifle odd. Not that there's anything wrong with inviting people to come forward in prayer. But maybe they should be called something else.

We have weekly altar calls at my church. People can come to the kneeling rail (a.k.a. "communion rail" in front of the chancel, which contains an altar.