Bless to Me Info - Powered by Keap

A Worship Design Studio Series

Based on Celtic Blessings

Take a virtual pilgrimage to Ireland this summer with new Worship Design Studio series "Bless to Me," a joyful exploration of what it means to see blessings in the world around us every day inspired by Beth A. Richardson's Celtic Blessing poems. Rather than parroting flat, comfortless platitudes that fail to reach us in our own ordinary, messy contexts, how can we proclaim gratitude and grace for God's unshakable presence in our lives? Explore the possibilities with Dr. Marcia McFee and her team through this brand-new worship series that will carry your community through a summer of new awakening! Read the synopses for the whole series HERE.

Resources for the series include 50 pages of ideas for worship, drawing on all five of the major worship arts: Music, Visual, Verbal, Media, and Dramatic Arts. You are free to mix and match our ideas and adapt to your own community's context! Worship Design Studio members have access to this series at no extra cost through their subscription. Just log into your account and click on the Worship Series tab to view the resources right away! If you are not a member of WDS, you can still get access to this series! Keep reading to find out how. And learn more about the series below...

The natural beauty of Ireland inspires the visual ethos of this series. With themes rooted deep in Celtic Christianity, we begin to explore the idea of a virtual pilgrimage that echoes the footsteps of mystics and monks through the ages. Through poems, litanies, music, and rituals, we connect our everyday lives at home with all manner of complications and frustrations to a deep and restful peace, drawing on the rich backdrop of Ireland. "Bless to Me" encourages us to grow our awareness of all the blessings that surround us.

"Bless to Me" is inspired by the book Christ Beside Me, Christ Within Me: Celtic Blessings by Beth A. Richardson. Beth's book expands our understanding of the word "blessing" and shows us how to create our own "bless to me" prayers that proclaim God's presence in every scenario of our lives, even the hard times that don't feel like a blessing at all. We highly recommend this book as a small group study while you are doing the series in worship! Beth's book is available in print, ePub, Kindle, and via audiobook through Upper Room Books. If you decide to offer this book as a small group study for the church, you can get a discount on bulk orders! You can also get the book through Amazon HERE.

Learn more about the inspiration behind this series by watching our interview with the author! We've linked to a clip of the interview with Beth A. Richardson in the video above. The full conversation focuses on the meaning behind "blessing" as we approach it in this series and on the creative process that helps us compose our own "bless to me" prayers as a spiritual practice. You'll get access to the full interview with the series!

Connect with other churches who will be doing this series on our "Bless to Me" Facebook page! Facebook is a great way to cross-pollinate ideas for worship and to share your thoughts about elements of the series.

You will also have the opportunity to follow Beth's real pilgrimage to Ireland in July 2017! Beth will be writing about her journey and reflecting on connections to this series through her blog at www.betharichardson.com.

If you are not a Worship Design Studio member, you can purchase this series "à la carte" through a brand new product that we are offering for the first time, the WDS Starter Kit!! The Starter Kit comes with much more than this worship series, including three full months of worship resources, a seasonal podcast for Fall Ordinary Time, guides and articles to introduce you to our design process, webinars and teaching videos, a design calendar for the 2017-2018 liturgical year, and MORE! Learn more about this amazing deal and purchase the "Bless to Me" series at THIS LINK.