Different Gifts but the Same Spirit: Voices Together Dedication

Receiving a new hymnal and worship book is a significant moment in the lives of worshipers and worshiping communities. In the weeks and years ahead, the songs and worship resources in Voices Together will accompany us through times of suffering and joy. They will shape how we enter into God’s story through Scripture and the Christian year, how we share our stories with one another week by week and on occasions like baptisms and funerals, and how we live into God’s story every day by joining God’s mission of peace and justice.

Some may be excited to receive Voices Together, eager to engage the challenge of learning new songs and ways of worship and to discover new connections through these pages. Others may be concerned or uncertain, anxious about learning new songs and apprehensive about the unknown. Many will experience a complex mixture of emotions when facing a change so closely connected to our faith and life as individuals and communities.

Dedicating Voices Together is an opportunity to give thanks to God for the gift of worship and song and to commit ourselves to receive this gift in ways that honor God, one another, and our neighbours.

These resources have been developed to help your congregation dedicate Voices Together using one of three options:

• A Sunday worship service focused on dedicating Voices Together. The resources provided for this service may be adapted to take a contemporary, blended, or traditional form.
• A worship night or hymn sing apart from Sunday worship.
• A time of prayer and song to dedicate Voices Together in a worship service with another focus: read 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, pray the prayer of dedication, and sing either “Summoned by the God Who Made Us” or “I Will Sing with You.”