Welcome to the Seeker Cycle! 

The “Seeker Cycle” of the Uncommon Lectionary is designed for people who are “strangers to grace”. These are the spiritually yearning, institutionally alienated public who have deep longings and religious sensitivities, but who are angry or frustrated with religious institutions for a host of reasons. I use the acronym the “SYiA Generation” because they have all said “See ya later!” to the churchy people, churchy environments, and churchy agendas. Yet … they long for grace. They hunger and thirst for grace. They yearn for one good, effective, reliable, convincing, spiritual reason NOT to despair about life. 

The Seeker Cycle is designed to help worship teams focus their personal mission, so that they can focus a worship experience, which will introduce seekers to grace and acquaint them with the basics of the Bible. Nothing more … or less … is expected. These people may or may not join the church, attend more traditional worship services, use offering envelopes, contribute time and talent to the institution, serve on committees, or attend fellowship suppers. Hopefully, they will be intentionally drawn into mid-week affinity groups in whom they can discover more about themselves, the personal relationships, and God. 

Make no mistake. Seeker Services do not pay for themselves. They do not make money. They do not increase the income to the budget of the church. They cost money. They require the subsidy of church members who develop these worship opportunities as an outreach ministry of the church. 

First Sunday in January (Genesis 1 – 2 and Acts 17) 

Every New Year feels like a fresh start … for approximately five minutes or until we are sober! After that, our fate surrounds and entraps us once again. Addictions, debts, bad habits, wrong relationships, career limitations, circumstances of health and wealth and birth crowd around us once again, robbing life of hope. It is too big a challenge to keep hope alive for the entire year. Let’s just try to keep it alive this afternoon, today, and then tomorrow, and the day after that. In time, hope can become our new habit. Optimism can be our new default programming. God created us once. He can recreate us again. It has never been up to the strength of our resolutions. It has always been up to the power of God.

Team Meditation: Making Jesus Known (Acts 17)

The great inconsistency in ancient paganism (and contemporary spiritualities) is that the Creator cannot be created. The desire to make the experience of God immediate and relevant to daily living is understandable, says the early Christian preacher Chrysostom, but the strategy to make idols of the Creator is flawed. Human creativity will always be less that the Creator, and our failure to create our own bridge to God only shows how far from God we really are! Thanks be to God that He has made himself known … and immediately available to the human heart … in Jesus Christ his only Son. God is near, and yet so very far, so long as Jesus Christ is “unknown”. How will we make Jesus “known” to the seekers in worship?

Worship Theme: New Beginnings (Genesis 1 and 2)

Choose the good. That is the way to begin anew. Then keep on choosing good, and you will can live righteously. Live righteously, and you will know true peace. It is all very simple. Life in the Garden of Eden is very simple. It is only when the choices between good and evil are blurred that life becomes complicated and worrisome. Inevitably, when so many choices are ambiguous, one will make a wrong choice. So there is only one way to really return to the beginning and start over again. One must begin with forgiveness.

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 2^nd Sunday in January (Colossians 1:15-2:19 and Luke 2:21-38) 

Colossians 2:9-10   ⁹ For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,  ¹⁰ and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 

God is fully in Jesus … so that in relationship with Jesus we can have abundant and eternal life. If God were only in Jesus partially, then our hope would be limited to a better life on earth and an eternal question mark after death. Yet this is not the promise of the Gospel. God wants us to have abundant and eternal life, and therefore God has poured his entire self into Jesus, so that through relationship with Jesus, we might be completely saved.

Team Meditation: Contradictory Living (Luke 2:21-38)

What does it mean that Jesus the Christ is “a sign that is spoken against”? We cooed over the baby Jesus and romanticized the birth of the Christ child, and suddenly Simeon is prophesying about the fall of the powerful and swords that pierce the heart in sorrow. The early Christian thinker Origen observed that everything about Jesus was paradoxical and contrary to common sense. He was born of a virgin, a divine person in a human body, raised from the dead … everything contradicts our scientific proofs and reliance on reason. Who will Jesus cause to fall? We ourselves fall because we lack faith that transcends reason. Who will Jesus raise up? We ourselves are raised when we place absolute trust in God’s power. How can we take the seeker beyond skepticism to experience the greater power of God?

Worship Theme: Making Peace (Colossians 1:15-2:19)

How does the blood of the cross make peace? There are many ways to answer that question. Here is one. Once we believe that Jesus was truly the only Son of God, and the fullness of God lived in him, then his terrible death at the hands of evil people should clearly require a just punishment. Yet it is clear from the Gospels that the blame did not just lay with Judas, the Pharisees, the Romans, or any particular group, but with all of humanity. Jesus’ killers were motivated by an evil that lies within all people, and in that sense, all people deserve to be punished. Yet God offered forgiveness instead. Not only does God’s grace forgive the deed of humanity, but the deed of God overcomes the evil at the heart of humanity. God is at peace with humans, and through this example of extreme grace, humans should be at peace with one another.

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3^rd Sunday in January (John 8:12-20 and 9; Luke 10:1-24) 

John 8:12   ¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." 

Modern people do not really experience true darkness, because our homes and streets are constantly illuminated by artificial energy. Electricity, like so much science, deceives us into a false security. Yet modern people therefore experience darkness in their souls that is blacker than any night. For when the artificial energy on which rely burns out, we easily despair, thinking that light itself is a fantasy. Only when the true, eternal light is revealed do we realize how much our hearts yearned for God.

Team Meditation: Passing it on! (Luke 10:1-24)

“Peace be to this house!” Many churches pass the peace during the liturgy, but today this has become a mere gesture of friendship and personal acceptance. Even when these handshakes and hugs and smiles are utterly sincere, they still fail to capture the real meaning of the Gospel. St. Augustine said that the greeting of peace is a gift of grace. It is the friendship of Jesus that is offered, not just our own friendship. Cyril of Alexandria declares that when we “pass the peace” it is Jesus himself speaking through us. Our handshake becomes a touch of the Holy, and for a brief moment we ourselves become a sacrament of God. How can we communicate this deeper meaning when we next “pass the peace” in worship?

Worship Theme: (John 8:12-20 and 9)

One constant feature among the healing stories of Jesus is that each one is so very, very personal. This particular blind man is singled out from many simply to demonstrate God’s power over evil. His blindness is not a punishment for any evil deed. It is simple reality … the way it is, unexplainable circumstance. Yet he in particular is chosen and healed. Later, when the happy man is asked if he believes in the Son of Man, he makes no generic response about faith in God. He, too, gets personal. Exactly who are we talking about? Jesus. Then yes, he believes in THAT Son of Man. Evil may be generic, but grace is very concrete. Reality may be indifferent to individuals, but grace is very specific to individuals. God does not just promise to heal the world, but God promises to heal you in particular. And you are not asked to abstractly believe in God, but to believe in Jesus in particular.

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4^th Sunday in January (Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Luke 9:57-62) 

Jeremiah 18:4  ⁴ And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. 

God shapes life. Evolution just shapes existence. The debate between evolution and creation misses the real point of faith. Life is more than existence. Life is different that existence. No matter how much you may feel sociologically or genetically determined, God can reshape your life. Your life can transcend the conditions of your existence. This is God’s promise and warning. Not only can God shape your life, but God will shape your life, like it or not. Darwin cannot help you live your life tomorrow, nor can science save you from sin or death. Only God can do that.

Team Meditation: Called to Follow (Luke 9:57-62)

We often think that Jesus rebukes this would-be disciple because he does not fully understand the cost of discipleship, and is unwilling to set aside even the most honorable human obligations for the sake of the urgency of the Gospel. Certainly this is the commentary of Basil the Great, who challenged even Emperor Constantine himself for hidden worldliness. The greater mistake, says Cyril of Alexandria, is that the would-be disciple is presuming an apostolic calling. He is “self-called”. He seeks his own prestige rather than the productivity of the Gospel, and therefore assumes he can bend the mission to suit his lifestyle. Only those who are truly called can find the strength to endure the cost of discipleship. Is anything … even a seemingly honorable obligation … holding us back from fulfilling God’s mission? Let this test the depth and breadth of our calling.

Worship Theme: God Shapes Our Lives (Jeremiah 18:1-11)

The real point of Jeremiah’s story is not that God can create what he wills, but that God will recreate what is spoiled. We already know that God created everything. That was in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, before everything went wrong. Jeremiah wants us to know that God is will recreate, reshape, and renew life as God intends it to be. As exciting as that sounds, Jeremiah warns that it will be a painful process. There must be deconstruction, before than can be reconstruction. There will be pain before there can be joy. There must be discipline before there can be permission. How will Israel endure it? How will you and I endure it? We can only be confident that we are in the sure hands of the Creator, and he will guarantee the result.

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5^th Sunday in January (Acts 9:1-31 and Luke 12:1-12) 

Acts 9:3-5   ³ Now as [Saul] journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him.  ⁴ And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"  ⁵ And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" 

The very people who deny God most vehemently, are the people who in the deepest heart seek God most urgently. Pray for them. Their transformation will often be most sudden and complete. It is the people who are luke warm about God that are the hardest to transform. They are the one’s content to live in ambivalence, hoping that half-hearted openness to the divine will allow them to escape God’s notice. They require a longer process of mentoring.

Team Meditation: Perfect Love (Luke 12:1-12)

There is an old adage that “God will not give us more than we can bear.” The ancient source of this adage is from Cyril of Alexandria: “Let us not doubt that with a rich hand he will give his grace to those who love him. He will not permit us to fall into temptation. If, by his wise purpose he permits us to be taken in the snare in order that we may gain glory by suffering, he will most assuredly grant us the power to bear it.” The key is love. Perfect love casts out fear. Loving God with the whole heart and soul gives us strength even for martyrdom. Can you bear it? The answer lies in focusing the heart on God.

Worship Theme: The Day After (Acts 9:1-31)

The usual preaching focus for Acts 9 is the dramatic conversion of Saul … a transformation so complete as to change his very name to “Paul”. There is a great deal to be said about God’s power to reclaim his own, and preachers can expound this theme, and motivate their hearers, bring tears of repentance, and even convert a few more people like Saul. What was really crucial, however, was not the conversion. It was the mentoring Paul received after the conversion. He spent days and weeks humbly listening to his mentor Ananias, and prayerfully conversing with the risen Christ. His spiritual discipline, guided by this great mentor, completed his conversion, grounded his faith, and pointed the way to his new calling. Therefore, what is important is not what you do on Sunday in response to the sermon or the liturgy, but what you do the day after, and the week after that. Find a mentor. Join a small group. Go deep into faith. Go far in your calling.

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