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Welcome and Notices
Next week there will be congregational singing before church and a morning tea for the Friendship Circles after the service.
Helen is back, her welcome took the form of:
Woody Allen has said, "God has put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind I will never die." I'll leave you to link this with the rest of the service.
The Call to Worship was responsive, finishing with:
From what source does our well of determination spring?
From you, O creating God, within whose awareness we have been since before we were born.
We people who live in time, find this difficult to get our heads around but it makes perfect sense. Looking back, it seems that God has always had hold of me, even when I was looking in the other direction. When I was looking away I called God's voice 'insight'; I called prayer 'wondering about things'; I called a response to God's command a response to 'principles'. Through all my 'heels in: lip out' refusal to acknowledge Him, He was there.
Hymn 148 "Love divine, all loves excelling" Together we opened our hearts and minds to our God, asking him to make us over, to make us as we were meant to be.
The Prayer of Praise and Confession a call for God to show us the core of our person; to sustain us in times of loss of confidence; to show how to be open to Him and to the possibilities raised in our minds through new understanding and new ideas. And then those words we long to hear: "Your sins are forgiven".
Reading Jeremiah 1: 4 - 10. The young Jeremiah was more than overwhelmed, as we often are but God's response was 'Now I have put my words in your mouth.' End of discussion.
Reflection: Can't: not an option.
We expected and received a message straight from God. Just as God put words in Jeremiah's mouth so he did for Helen in this service.
Through an account of her experience on a cruise where she was determined not to reveal her position as a Minister of the UC and where she was alarmed at the prospect of having any part in the cruise Protestant service, she told us that at the last minute, when during the service it was announced there was no one to conduct the Eucharist, God pushed her forward, without any preparation, to do so.
It was a humbling and blessed experience for her and, if the thanks she received during the week that followed was any indication, it was a blessed time for many others.
Helen went on to remind us of our resorting to "I'm inadequate" to slip away from God's call.
She also reminded us that he summons us, he knows us by name, he has a plan.
God needs us on this Earth. His plans and our plans may be different. That could be inconvenient for us.
In my experience God keeps at us until we give in. The sooner we do that, the sooner we will be at peace, the sooner God’s work will be done.
A Statement of Faith: The One Ministry of Christ followed. This was based on Corinthians 12. Rather than record it here, I suggest you look at the Bible reference.
Through this statement we affirmed our position as members of the church.
Hymn “Will you come and follow me, if I but call your name” - The Summons
We've all heard the advice, "Keep it real." This hymn certainly does.
"Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?...Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?...Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen?...Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around, through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?"
Will you? Scary stuff.
The Communion
After the invitation and story of Christ's sacrifice we were told:
Taking the bread, Jesus broke it and said,
This is my body, broken for you
Taking the cup, Jesus said,
This is the new covenant, in my blood, poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sins
Prayer after Communion
"Lord, we can be reluctant followers, rather overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all.
Together, as a community, we have shared in communion, remembering you are within, and around us, empowering us to say, yes, to our summons."
This sort of things stops me in my tracks. To acknowledge that it all seems too much but knowing I have to say "Yes" anyway. Knowing that the only way it works is with Jesus as my focus is asking so much when I'm really more concerned about what I want.
Hymn TIS 658 "I, the Lord of sea and sky" - "Here I am Lord...I will go Lord" I can only make this promise as a vessel of God's spirit. There is no chance of pulling this off on my own.
The Offering This is the easy part. Using it to do God's will and not letting what we want get in the way, is the hard part.
Hymn TIS 531 "Sent forth by God's blessing" - "The supper is ended: may now be extended the fruits of his service in all who believe"
Sunday service isn't just a matter of "A nice time was had by all." We are to go out and do the job God has set before us.
Commissioning “Go now, empowered by the Spirit to step out in faith.”
The Benediction we said together:
“We go in the Spirit of the Triune God.
Father of love,
Mother of Grace,
Spirit in all and through all.
Amen.”
As is said in the film world: "That's a wrap!". We leave, mended souls, to try to keep our hand in God's for another week.
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