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Guidelines for those Planning Worship

| Begin Planning | Lectionary | Music and Arts | Set-up and Clean-up | Paraments | Vestments | Flowers | Scripture Readings | Offering | Acolytes | Communion Services | Bulletins | Language | Worship Committee | Planning Check-List |

Thank You

Thank you for being willing to participate in this important ministry.  Whether you are a faculty member, student, member of the staff, or honored guest, the seminary benefits and learns from the leadership and care you bring to our weekly worship service. 

The guidelines offered below are intended to answer basic recurring questions in the preparation and leadership of worship at BTS. 

Wednesday Chapel at BTS:

We are diverse community and we expect that our worship services will reflect the broad diversity of Christian (and occasionally non-Christian) wisdom in worship.  Bangor Theological Seminary does not have a prescribed format for regular Wednesday services.  As an official seminary of the United Church of Christ, our worship patterns often follow those of the traditions contained in the UCC.  From the hymnals we most often use to our valuing of community-centered worship styles (rather than hierarchical patterns) there are many indications of our roots in the UCC worship ethos broadly defined.  But it is fully expected that leaders will bring their own convictions, traditions, experiences, and personal predilections to the prayerful preparation and leadership of worship.  Seminary chapel is an excellent place for ministers in training and their teachers to try new approaches to worship preparation and leadership.

For more, see Bangor Theological Seminary Catalogue, 2002, page 9, "The School at Worship and Prayer," also posted on the Internet.  Click Here. 

Begin Planning the Service

Since there is no “set” liturgy, each week begins essentially with a blank slate.  The worship planner for any given service is largely responsible for conceiving the entirety of the service and its individual liturgical elements.  These normally include: prayers, hymn choices, special music or musicians, scripture texts, and sermon or service themes. 

If you are a guest from outside the seminary community, you will be assigned a contact person by the Worship Committee to assist you with planning, to answer any questions, coordinate participants, and to see to many of the details.  Click here for a list of the duties of contact person.

If you are a member of the BTS community, faculty, staff, or student, you will take on most of planning role.

Use of the Lectionary

Most Wednesday services at BTS follow the course of the Revised Common Lectionary.  Our pattern has been to use the lessons for the Sunday following the Wednesday service (not the Sunday before).  This allows a community of fellow worship leaders and planners to experience the lessons before they themselves go into their local churches and lead worship on the same texts there.  While this is our usual practice, it is not a slavish one.  Many worship planners and preachers choose their own texts to fit a preaching theme, change one or more of the lections, or choose between the lections (not necessarily reading all four).

Note: We are familiar with the use of chant and sung responses in the use of the Psalms.

Music and other arts

Hymns

Please relay your hymn choices at least a week before the service to the choir director, Elizabeth Vernon [evernon@midmaine.com or (207) 989-2726] and the pianist, Lois Leckey [letke@midmaine.com or (207) 269-2391].  If you are a guest from outside the seminary community, give these to your contact person and he or she will see that the musicians are informed.  We have the New Century Hymnal in the Pews, the Pilgrim Hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition (the Unitarian Universalist Hymnal), and The United Methodist Hymnal. 

Choir Anthem

The Seminary Choir sings an anthem each week during the service.  This should be listed in the bulletin at an appropriate place.  Do not use the Anthem at the place of the Offertory. 

Normally the choir director chooses the anthem.  If you have a special request for a choir anthem, please contact the choir director (or your contact person) about your request at least two weeks ahead of your service date.

Special Music or other Arts

We strongly encourage lively creativity in the use of the arts in worship.   If you wish to use special music that requires piano accompaniment, please be in touch with Lois Leckey at least two weeks in advance of your service.

Announcements and Service Music

It is our usual practice to consider the musical prelude and postlude of the chapel service as parts of our community worship and opportunities for seated silent meditation and prayer.  Worship leaders and planners are encouraged to begin the chapel service at 11:00 a.m. with a word of welcome and announcements, after which the prelude (or other act of opening worship) will begin.

Set-up and Clean-up

Two volunteer Sacristans for the seminary is assigned by the Worship Committee for ordinary set up and clean up tasks.  

You are free to arrange the worship space in chapel to reflect the themes and theological values of the worship experience you are creating.  The chairs, lectern, and communion table are moveable.  There are a variety of other tables and worship elements that you may choose from in your planning.  The maintenance staff are happy to help with the rearranging of the chapel space if they are given advanced notice.  Contact Jim Brochu at jbrochu@bts.edu. Or, you may express your wishes through your contact person.

Paraments

BTS owns sets of paraments in colors appropriate for most liturgical seasons.  They are found hanging in closets in the robing room behind the chapel.

You are welcome to bring your own paraments or banners, or decorate the chapel as you like.  Use the sacristans or your contact person to coordinate this. 

If you remove paraments that are on the tables or pulpit, please return these to the robing room closets and hang them up.

Vestments

The use of vestments in worship varies widely by both tradition and personal predilection.  Worship presiders and preachers should feel free to wear the type of vestments to which they are entitled and that help create the type of worship experience for which they aim.

There are several white albs available in the robing room behind the chapel which are for the use of those participating in BTS worship.

Chapel Flowers

The seminary circulates a sign-up sheet for members of the community to provide flowers for use in seminary worship.  As the worship planner, where these are placed is normally a matter of your discretion.

Flowers may be given in honor or memory by any member of the BTS community.  Alternatively, money may be given for flower purchases.  

Scripture Readings

As stated above, the Seminary typically, but not exclusively, follows the course of the Revised Common lectionary.

The worship planner is responsible for inviting people to be Readers in the service and seeing to it that they are informed about their readings, what liturgical elements to use before or after the readings.

An NRSV pulpit bible is on the lectern, as are several other reading resources, including an inclusive language New Testament and a lectionary Bible.

The Offering

An offering is usually received in the Wednesday worship services.  During Spring 2004 half of all of our offerings will go to S.A.R.A (Sharing America's Resources Abroad) .  Worship planners my chose to designate the other half of an offering to SARA or a charity of their choice.  Normally, these monies go to a local charity or other worthy cause.  Please make the recipient of the offering you take clear on your worship bulletin or announce it during the service. Give the address of the recipient to the sacristan or contact person.

The worship committee treasurer will put the collection in an envelope with the designated organization and address and give these to Jackie Bussier.

Some Organizations for which BTS has taken a Chapel Collection

• AIDS Network

• Area Food Pantry

• Bangor Animal Shelter

• Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, P.O. Box 1754, Bangor, ME 04402-1754.

• Bangor Half-Way House, 98 Cumberland Street, Bangor, ME 04401-5293.  941-1600.

• Bangor Women’s Shelter

• The Carpenter's Boatshop on Pemaquid Point

• Faith in Action of Eastern Maine

• Hersey Retreat

• H.O.M.E.  Orland, ME 04472

• MADD

• Manna Ministries.  Location: 180 Center Street, Bangor, 04401.  Mailing: PO Box 2763, Bangor, ME 04402.

• Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, 170 Park Street, Bangor, ME 04401. 942-9343

• The Philip Hayden Foundation (China Orphanage).

• Ronald McDonald House, 654 State Street, Bangor 04401.

• Seafarer's Friend, 2 Portland Fish Pier, Portland, ME 04101.

• Shaw House (aids homeless children), 136 Union Street, Bangor, ME 04401

• Spruce Run (works against domestic abuse): PO Box 653, Bangor, ME 04402-0653.

• Veteran’s Home

• Wassookeag School 

Acolytes and other assistants

If you are a worship planner or preacher who is from the BTS community, please appoint persons who will assist you in the service as acolytes, communion assistants, greeters, and so on. 

If you are a guest planner or preacher, tell your contact person how many assistants or acolytes you need, and she or he will appoint them.

Communion Services

The normal pattern has been for the seminary to celebrate Holy Communion on the first Wednesday of the month.  Therefore, a person ordained and authorized by his or her denomination is needed for these services. 

Communion Elements: bread, wine and juice.

• It is the responsibility of the worship planner and/or your contact person to arrange for the provision of the communion elements used in a service of Holy Communion. 

• We try to use gluten-free bread, which is more digestible for some people.  Gluten Free Recipes  

• Many people have found the communion bread baked by the Friar’s Bake House in downtown Bangor to be pleasing.  They need a day’s notice to provide this, however.

• The traditions represented at the Seminary reflect various usages regarding the contents of the cup.  Most of our services use unfermented grape juice.  But we have on occasion used de-alcoholized wine and regular wine.  If unfermented grape juice is used, please provide 100% grape juice, not "grape drink.”  If wine is used, please provide a red wine.

• Because the Table is a common meal and Christianity's most ancient symbol of unity, it is not appropriate to have different choices at the table.  Avoid, for example, having both wine and juice in different cups and encouraging folks to choose which they prefer. 

• Out of respect for the community, it is essential to inform the chapel congregation of the contents of the cup either in the bulletin or in an announcement at an appropriate time in the service.

• Communion leftovers.  Regardless of your theology of communion, any left over bread or drink from communion should be disposed of in a respectful manner.  Two ways are customary: consumption by people during or after the service, or their return to the earth.  It is not acceptable to throw them in the trash.

Distribution of the Elements

• We usually receive the cup both by intinction and drinking.  We do not have a communion rail, so we usually receive standing at one or more “stations.”  If you desire the community to receive in a particular way, please make your directions clear.

• The seminary owns several ceramic chalices and patens.  We also own two sets of “individual serving” communion-ware and both glass and plastic cups. 

• Those who distribute bread and wine to the congregation should use a white napkin (purificator) to wipe the lip (inside and outside) of the cup if people drink from it.  These are kept in the sacristy cabinet and should be laid out for use on the communion table or credence table before the service.  Communicants should be discouraged from drinking from common cup if there is no napkin.

Bulletin printing

The worship planner or contact person is responsible to make sure that the bulletin is typed and accurate.

You or your contact person are normally responsible for typing and printing copies of your bulletins.  About 50 should suffice.  Sue Davenport or Cheryl Hawkins may be available to help with these matters.

Use of Language

For the Seminary’s policy on the use of inclusive language is in the Catalogue 2000-2002 (page 65), and reads: “Bangor Theological Seminary charges its members to work faithfully against discrimination and oppression.  Language may and often does reflect and perpetuate unjust divisions and distortions within the human family of God.  Therefore, while respecting the right to express one's faith, the Seminary calls upon everyone to employ language, written and oral, which affirms the dignity of all persons and communicates the gospel as the liberating and healing Word of God.”

The BTS Worship Committee

• The Seminary Worship Committee consists of a faculty chair (Cliff Guthrie: cguthrie@bts.edu), the choir director and pianist, and interested students, staff, and faculty.  It normally meets once a month.  Its role is to plan the worship calendar for the year, coordinate advance planning efforts with the Faculty and administration, name and help find solutions to the needs of the chapel, reflect on issues concerning worship that arise in our community, and communicate matters about worship life to the seminary community. 

• The Committee usually does not plan individual services.  However, when requested at least a month in advance, the Committee can provide individualized help and guidance to those planning worship.

• If you are a guest preacher or worship leader from beyond the BTS community, the Committee will assign you a contact person to help coordinate your visit.

BTS Worship Web Site

• The seminary maintains a web site in which one can find the current worship calendar and additional information about the worship life at the seminary.  It is linked from the main web page at www.bts.edu/btsworship/ 

• The BTS Worship Committee invites you to submit your sermon in electronic form that it might be included on the worship web site.