Guidelines For Planning A Service Of Reconciliation

The service of reconciliation should be planned with the needs of the local worshiping community in mind. The following checklist highlights concerns which should be addressed by worship planners. (1) A service of reconciliation celebrates redemption, justification, and salvation in which God forgives us seventy times seven through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is a Christian celebration because, through our faith in Jesus, we as Christians are being reconciled to God and to one another. A service of reconciliation can never be only an individual event, but must somehow encompass both the personal and also the wider ecclesial and social dimensions. As the word reconciliation indicates, the service of reconciliation celebrates a return to harmony after that harmony has in some way been disrupted ("How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" [Rom. 6:2, nrsv]). (2) A service of reconciliation can focus on: (a)the individual, where the disharmony is within oneself…