Remembering September 11
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear.
— Psalm 46:1-2a
Use the materials and information on this website with your congregation to remember and honor the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 and recommit to working for peace and justice in resistance to the violence in the world.
Letter from our church leaders
In a letter to “all who minister in the name of Jesus Christ in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” elder Cindy Bolbach, Moderator of the 219th General Assembly (2010), Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and Linda Valentine, Executive Director of the General Assembly Mission Council, equate the attacks with those “that define a generation” and encourage remembering in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Education
Use these materials for the teaching of children, youth and adults.
Liturgy and prayer
Use these prayers and ritual actions for remembering the honored dead of September 11, taking a stand for peace, and for preaching the gospel from the lectionary passages that day.
Theology
What theological resources does the church have that can help us in thinking about September 11?
Interfaith witness
September 11, 2001, made us keenly aware that we live in an interfaith world. How do Christians relate to those who hold other faiths? How do we, as faithful Christians, organize an interfaith witness to peace with others in our community? For additional resources on how to work with people of other faiths, see the Interfaith Toolkit provided by the Office of Interfaith Relations.
Pastoral care
The anniversary of traumatic events can cause others to relive their tragedies. How do we minister to those affected by violence, honor the dead, and work against violence for the good of all?
Devotional
The daily lectionary readings in the days leading up to September 11 prompt us to reflect upon the nature of our citizenship in God’s Dominion. The days leading out of September 11 lead us into the devotional resource that encourage us to pray for all children in the world.
Comments
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For more interactive ideas, I posted some ideas for prayer stations on my blog. http://theresaecho.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/interactive-prayer-stations-on-10th-anniversary-of-911/
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Thanks be to God for Jonathan Dennis, our web content developer, whose method he'd always used before didn't work on these documents for some odd reason, so he had to completely reconstruct all the pdf files. They should all work for everyone now. Let me know if you have any problems. Blessings, Teresa Stricklen
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Here's how to copy a PDF and make changes. At least with a Macintosh. Go to Select All, Copy, and then Paste into Microsoft Word or other word processing application.
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Robert, the extra pdf step is annoying, but this is how the site can cross reference searches, so we're stuck with it according to our web designers. Thanks for your patient forbearance on this. With regard to the pdf files not being able to be readily copied, I've requested that this be changed asap! The whole point of these resources is to help people out. Thanks for drawing this to our attention.
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Some very nice resources are attached to this site. However, the extra page between the first description of a resource and a PDF file is annoyingly cumbersome. Further, the PDF files are formatted to thwart copying and pasting portions directly into other documents, including worship bulletins.