This is part of the worship series
"The Lord, Our Shepherd"
Introduction
Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5
Palm Sunday | Maundy Thursday | Easter
Home Devotions
Introduction
Go with the familiar! This advice has meant a lot to me as I consider worship planning. As a pastor, I have too often looked for unique, one-of-a-kind approaches to Christmas, Lent, and the other “standard events” of the Christian year. This year I felt compelled to go with the familiar and serve up a Lent/Easter series based on Psalm 23.
Psalm 23 is one of the best known portions of the entire Bible. Many church members can recite it by heart, children learn it at an early age, and even those who attend sporadically find it familiar and comforting. That is why we use it at funerals. That is why people display it on plaques in their homes. And that is why it came to mind as the perfect psalm to use in developing a series of services for Lent/Easter.
I came to appreciate Psalm 23 as a precious gem to be featured in the season of Lent. Jesus is the Lamb of God, and we often highlight this part of his identity during Lent. Jesus is also our Shepherd. As we walk with him through life, and through Lent, the pictures presented in Psalm 23 are precious indeed. Message themes that touch daily life sprang from the psalm, and these themes served well to give direction to our congregation during Lent. At one point I inverted the order of the statements in the psalm, making it possible to deal with the psalm’s “table” reference at our Maundy Thursday communion service. (The “anointing” theme ended up working well as a Palm Sunday text.)
The planning process proved to be a pure joy. Our worship planning team helped search for music based on the service themes. We arranged for each service to include a reading of Psalm 23, each time from a different Bible version or contemporary paraphrase. Our Scripture readers included a variety of persons, from very young children on one Sunday to an octogenarian on another (presenting the King James Version, with eyes closed, reciting from memory). We found a brief drama based on the psalm and used it early in the series. Finally, we created a banner for our large A-frame sanctuary that blended a cross and a shepherd’s staff, so that the worship area visually reflected the theme.
The more I studied and planned for this series, the more I became convinced that the worship theme needed to be carried fully into our lives, even beyond the Sunday worship. So I prepared a devotional guide available at the end of this article that was included in the Sunday bulletin, offering a passage and a reflective question for each day of the week. (These passages often repeated biblical references made in the sermon.) We encouraged each worship participant to read and pray over Psalm 23 each day, to listen to what God might say to them through these familiar words. We also added a series of brief, meditative Wednesday night prayer gatherings so that all would have a midweek opportunity to reflect on the Lord as our Shepherd.
That Lenten season turned out to be one of the richest in my twenty years of ministry. Psalm 23 became a daily companion in my personal walk, and a unifying theme in the devotional life of ministry. Preparing for each message helped me to come to a deeper appreciation of what had seemed overly familiar. And the appreciation of the worshipers helped me recognize anew that my job is not to give God’s people something new, but to present the “old story” with freshness and sincerity.
Series Contents
Included in this series are the worship plans for each Sunday along with the liturgical resources used for the Wednesday night prayer services. Each Sunday has been grouped together with the resources for the following Wednesday's service. For example, the page for Lent 1 includes the plan for both the first Sunday of Lent, and the outline for the prayer service that followed. Worship planners may find some of the materials that originally appeared in the Wednesday services could be used for a Sunday morning service which is why these have been grouped together. The home devotions can be found together on a separate page.
Series Outline
| Psalm 23 Theme | Scripture | |
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Lent 1 |
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. |
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Lent 2 |
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. |
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Lent 3 |
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. |
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Lent 4 |
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. |
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Lent 5 |
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. |
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Palm Sunday |
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. |
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Maundy Thursday |
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. |
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Easter Sunday |
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. |
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Additional Resources
Songs Based on Psalm 23
“My Shepherd Is the Lord/El Señor Es Mi Pastor”Psalter
“My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” Watts
“Psalm 23”Gelineau
“Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us” Hymn's for the Young
“Shepherd of My Soul”Nystrom
“The Lord, My Shepherd, Rules My Life”Idle
“The Lord’s My Shepherd” Scottish Psalter
Shepherd Songs
Members and friends of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin, Texas, commissioned some of the best hymn text and tune writers around the world to prepare new hymns as part of the church’s yearlong “Focus on Hymns” project. The authors were given free reign, except that they had to include the words “Good Shepherd” in their texts. These thirteen hymns by twenty-six authors and composers are a wonderful gift to the church at large. They cover a wide range of themes, from Advent to Easter to pastoral concerns. Russell Schulz-Widmar, editor of the collection and director of music at Good Shepherd, writes:
I am deeply grateful to the people of Good Shepherd Church who grasped an idea and made it happen. . . . With affection, Shepherd Songs is offered to people everywhere who count themselves part of the flock.
Shepherd Songs, Russell Schulz-Widmar, ed. Kingston, NY: Selah Publishing Co, 2002. www.selahpub.com. Offered in congregational and full music editions. Most of the hymns included may be used by congregations who are enrolled in the CCLI or LicenSing programs.
