Here you will find prepared material ready-to-use in gathered worship and personal devotion. These sources are many, representing the variety of worship experiences in the United Reformed Church and our ecumenical partners. Included are resources for Children and Youth Ministries.
If you have suggestions for additions, please forward them to the URC Worship Reference Group.
- On-line worship services
- Active and pre-recorded services which you may join for worship. Click here.
- During the Covid-19 emergency, the URC provides a weekly Sunday service in a radio-style podcast with hymns, readings, prayers and a sermon, provided featuring preachers from around the denomination. The Sunday Service email arrive in your inbox around 9:45am on Sundays and contains an order of service and words for you to sing along with the hymns. Click here to sign up and to view previous services.
- Zoom and streaming guidebooks produced by the URC – helpful and clear resources to make your on-line worship experience the best it can be. Click here to access these excellent booklets, several of which provide technical guidance and suggestions for using the Zoom platform.
- Worship resources ready-to-use
- Walking the Way Covid-19 booklet – Being the people of God in the face of Covid-19 — Click here
- Ideas for worship and inspiring activities shared by local congregations – Click here
- URC Worship Book – free access to the entire book online and as PDF downloads
- Object lessons to use in worship – On URC website (listed as Children & Youth Ministry)
- Resources for study and reflection in worship preparation
- Text this week: http://www.textweek.com/ – Lectionary-based
- Sermons for Kids https://sermons4kids.com/ – stories, messages & art activities
- The Dollar Store https://dskidsermons.com/ – Lectionary-based children’s sermons
- Working Preacher https://www.workingpreacher.org/ – Lectionary-based interpretation and inspiration
- Music in worship
- Advent, Christmas & Epiphany
- Lent
- URC Worship resources Shrove Tuesday through the Sundays of Lent, created for Feasts & Festivals 2017 – Click here.
- Holy Week & Easter
- URC Easter resources from Greenbelt – click here
- URC Easter promotion resources – free printable booklet and service sheet cover
- Pentecost/Whitsunday
- A Pentecost service with songs, activities written by URC Youth – Click here While written for use in lockdown 2020, most of the elements of the service are timeless.
- Prayer Stations for Pentecost including Martin Luther King’s speech, ‘I have a dream’ and related activities – click here.
- ‘The Fire of Love’, two Pentecosts celebrations produced by the Joint Liturgical Group in Great Britain are available for free download. Click here
- Pentecost Season/Ordinary Time
- Season of Creation
- Eco-Church worship resources to help your congregation focus on the environment in prayer and worship – Click here
- A Creationtide series of URC Daily Devotions is available for download. Click here. (You’ll find them listed in the left margin.)
- Season of Creation
- Sacraments
- Baptism
- Complete service in the URC Worship Book – click here
- Celebrating the birth of your child in the United Reformed Church – a URC booklet describing baptism, dedication and blessing options for worship services – click here
- Communion
- Complete communion services in the URC Worship Book – click here
- A complete ready-to-use communion service from Greenbelt – click here.
- Baptism
- Special Days throughout the year
-
- Harvest Sunday
- URC Harvest promotion resources – free printable poster and service sheet cover
- Worship resources for Harvest 2020: theme – ‘Thank you to our farmers!’, available from the Arthur Rank Centre for rural Christians
- Remembrance Day
- Special Weeks and Sundays are highlighted in a month-by-month listing created by the Joint Liturgical Group of Great Britain. The on-line resource provides a brief paragraph about a particular day, e.g. Sea Sunday, or an organisation, e.g. Seafarers Mission, which might be used in intercessions and a link for further information. This is a helpful tool as your congregation plans its year. Click here.
- Harvest Sunday
-
- Weddings & Blessing Ceremonies
- Funerals & Memorial services
- Virtual funerals: liturgies and words for our digital world, a URC booklet available on-line – Click here
- Council for World Mission Prayer Book – weekly prayers for our partners around the world – click here
- Commitment for Life worship resources
- Full service ready-to-use, including videos – click here
- Christian Aid worship resources – prayers responding to emergencies and disasters, worship resources for Climate Justice, resources for weekly worship including sermon pointers and prayers – click here
- Global link worship resources – these are often available from your Synod, relating to international partners.
- For example, Wessex Synod shares a partnership with the Lusaka Presbytery of the United Church of Zambia. A collection of Zambian worship resources, ‘Zambia Praise, has been developed. – click here
- Joint Liturgical Group of Great Britain
- An ecumenical service of baptism and confirmation – click here
- Roots on the web – Inspiring ideas and resources to use with toddlers to teens.
Personal Devotion – resources for use at home or on the go
-
- URC Daily Devotions – You may sign up for a daily devotion to arrive in your in-box or download A5 booklets of series of complete devotions. Click here.
- Prayer The items shared through this page explore prayer in innovative and fresh ways.
- Prayer Toolkit URC resources and suggestions to help you in personal, group or church prayer.
- Bible Study
- Lecto Divina Lectio Divina or ‘holy reading’ is a meditative and worshipful way of reading a passage of scripture.
- Spiritual nourishment The items shared through these pages explore Spirituality in innovative and fresh ways.