LAZARUS SUNDAY
This ready-made worship service is the perfect way to launch your One Parish One Prisoner journey!
SUMMARY
Lazarus Sunday is designed to spotlight the raising of Lazarus as the central story for our work of practicing resurrection together. The goal is to launch your church on the One Parish One Prisoner journey, bringing the congregation into the journey, commissioning your OPOP team, and introducing your new friend to the congregation.
You will find all the elements below to incorporate into your normal Sunday church service and turn it into a Lazarus Sunday. Feel free to adapt, adjust, or move around these elements to make them yours and fit your worship style.
INTRODUCTION
Introduce One Parish One Prisoner!
There are roughly the same amount of people in Washington State prisons as there are churches!
What if every church became a local reentry team—a resurrection community—walking alongside just one neighbor leaving the tombs of incarceration?
Two miraculous things would happen. It would empty the tombs of the prison system. And it would transform every church. We would become congregations that bravely follow Jesus to the tombs in our world and walk away transformed, practicing resurrection all throughout the year.
Today our church will be launching a 7-10 person team on a two year journey of learning, relationship building, and transformation. Today we will launch them with our blessing and support.
But they are not alone. We are their church family and will be supporting them on this journey.
So let’s check out this short teaser to kickstart our church’s imagination!
CONFESSION WITH THE CHURCH MUGSHOT
Sample Language:
We believe in transformation. Not just for those who've been locked up, but for faith communities as well. At the beginning of this OPOP journey, we want to take a moment to reflect on what we believe about prisons and those incarcerated by them. We have created a Mugshot for you to take individually and anonymously. A mugshot is one of the first things that happens when someone is arrested. It is the picture in time of where someone is at the beginning of their prison journey. Your mugshot is a picture in time at the beginning of our church’s OPOP journey.
So spend the next 7 minutes reflecting on your spiritual life, your growth and challenges, your connections to prisons, your fears and stigmas, and lay them before God honestly in this reflection time.
After our two-year journey, you'll answer these questions again to help you reflect on your transformation.
We have a QR code on a handout for each person to take this spiritual assessment. Let us enter this time of confession and introspection humbly and honestly.
OPOP will provide a handout with the QR code on it as well as the picture of your friend and their intro paragraph. It will help to send it out in a church email the week before and after to help everyone have a chance to practice it.
This practice can help your congregation consider who it is and who it wants to be and hopefully give the push to take the steps to close that gap.
PREACH
On this Lazarus Sunday, we are highlighting the biblical story from John 11:33-44 where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and invites the gathered community to participate in that resurrection.
In the story of Lazarus, we see Jesus draw near to the tomb when everyone else had left it behind. Jesus called his friend Lazarus out of the tombs. Then he called on his followers, the ekklesia (Greek for movement/church) to roll away the stone, the heavy barrier blocking reentry into the land of the living. Next, Jesus instructed the community to face their fears, step even closer, and “unbind” Lazarus, gently removing the layers of graveclothes that disguised Lazarus’ full humanity. Jesus said that by doing this, they’d “see the glory of God.”
The raising of Lazarus is a guide for our church in how a community can come around someone returning home from the tombs.
TESTIMONY
Now we get to hear from your team why is it important to them to begin this journey! Invite two people from your newly formed One Parish One Prisoner team to share their “why” for saying “yes” to this journey.
OUR FRIEND REVEAL
Have one member introduce your new friend returning home from prison. We will send you photo and introductory remarks that can be read and shown.
We hope this may become an ongoing practice. As much of the New Testament is letters written from prison, you can begin reading your friends letters in church (with their permission) as a modern day epistle!
TEAM BLESSING
Take this opportunity to bring your One Parish One Prisoner team to the front to introduce them to the church and pray a blessing over them.
This One Parish One Prisoner team is functioning as the hands of this church, this church body, to be in relationship with an incarcerated individual coming home from prison, and not only to write to this person as they are preparing for release, but then to be part of their reentry journey through the barriers of returning to life.
Lay on hands. Let the OPOP team know that they are not alone. We are one church body in this journey.