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SANCTUARY, 11:00 a.m.
A Service of Song, Word, & Table
January 26, 2024
* Please rise in body or spirit.
PRELUDE For Everyone Born Murray/Mann, arr. Trenney Lore Alán, tenor
WELCOME
CALL TO WORSHIP
How shall we live when lavished with love?
“We are God’s children, but it has not been revealed what we are to become in the future.”
Just as in our origins, our future is tied to our planet.
Creator has given us partners for mutual flourishing.
Let us worship God, who makes all things new.
* HYMN Where Charity and Love Prevail 549 UMH
A READING FROM THE EPISTLES I Corinthians 12:12-31a
This is the Word of God for the People of God.
Thanks be to God!
MUSICAL RESPONSE More Love arr. Kevin Siegfried Chancel Choir
MESSAGE
MUSICAL RESPONSE Restless Weaver W Zlobie Lezy
Restless Weaver, ever spinning threads of justice and shalom;
Dreaming patterns of creation where all creatures find a home;
Gathering up life’s varied fibers – every texture, every hue:
Grant us your creative vision, with us weave your world anew.
Where earth’s fragile web is raveling, help us mend each broken strand.
Bless our urgent, bold endeavors cleansing water, air, and land.
Through the Spirit’s inspiration – offering health where once was pain –
Strengthen us to be the stewards of your world knit whole again.
When our violent lust for power ends in lives abused and torn,
From compassion’s sturdy fabric fashion hope and trust reborn.
Where injustice rules as tyrant, give us courage, God, to dare
Live our dreams of transformation. Make our lives incarnate prayer.
Restless Weaver, still conceiving new life – now and yet to be –
Binding all your vast creation in one living tapestry:
You have called us to be weavers. Let your love guide all we do.
With your Reign of Peace our pattern, we will weave your world anew.
Words: O.I. Cricket Harrison (1955- )
Music: Polish folk Melody, harm. David High Jones
PASTORAL PRAYER
PASSING OF THE PEACE
REGATHERING HYMN The Gift of Love (vs 1,3) 408 UMH
INVITATION TO OFFERING & CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY Festive Peal on “Hymn to Joy” Michael Ryan Mass ApPeal Handbells
DOXOLOGY Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow 94 UMH
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING TFWS 2257 b,c,d
LORD’S PRAYER
MUSIC AT COMMUNION
INVITATION TO CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP
* SENDING HYMN Earth is Full of Wit and Wisdom Holy Manna
Earth is full of wit and wisdom sounding God’s delighted laugh.
From the tiny roly-poly to the tree-top-tall giraffe,
all creation sings in wonder; even rocks and trees rejoice
as they join the ringing chorus: echoes of our Maker’s voice.
Earth is full of wit and wisdom, woven into harmony.
Every creature has a purpose; every flower and bumble-bee,
spider, human, redwood, gecko, monkey, chicken, mouse and snake,
live within a single fabric: cloth that only God could make.
Earth is full of wit and wisdom: penguin, platypus and snail,
cactus, sea-slug, oak and algae, from the microbe to the whale.
In this great and strange creation, with a breath God gives us birth;
born of soil to live as stewards, called to love and serve the earth.
Words: Adam Tice (1979- )
Music: Holy Manna, Colubian Harmony 1825
BENEDICTION
The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. . . .
It is this wholeness that is calling to us now, that needs our response.
It needs us to return to our own root and rootedness: our relationship to the sacred within creation.
Only from the place of sacred wholeness and reverence can we begin the work of healing, of bringing the world back into balance.
POSTLUDE
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