Sunday, July 21, 2002 – 10:00 a.m.
Combined Summer Services for The United Churches of Redcliff, Irvine and Medicine Hat.
Today’s worship leader is Jane Clarke and all who join for today’s worship.
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Prelude
Announcements
A time of silent preparation—Lighting the Christ Candle
Call to Worship (Responsive)
One We gather together this morning, rising from summer sleeping to sacred singing,
All: from weeding gardens to worshipping God,
One: from camping out to sharing communion,
All: from recreation to re-creation.
We rise in the light of long summer days and gather in the light of God’s holy presence.
Prayer of Approach
One Let us continue to pray
All Source of all life, bring into this place a renewed sense of vision that we might know you again. Bring to us your love that we might discover its fullness. Lift from us worries about friends, and families, and strangers, that the anxiety we feel might be replaced by the love that we know. It is into worship we come with offerings of all that we are, and all that we seek to be. Receive us, bless us, send us away with new life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Creator God, you have seen our need and made our lives rich with many things: a sanctuary to nurture our souls; loving families, caring friends; rich fertile soil for growing; beauty in the nature around us. Forgive us when we fail to see and respond to the needs of others for whom a simple act of kindness, a small token of generosity or a word spoken in friendship could mean so much. Teach us, God, that we might be generous with our gifts and talents …(silent confession)
Assurance of Pardon (One)
Open to the Spirit of God, bit by bit, we discover the truth. Thanks be to God for not giving up on us.
Prayer of Illumination
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24 Transparent to God (James Taylor in Everyday Psalms)
One I am transparent to you, God.
All You can see right through me.
One I can hide nothing from you.
All You read my body language, and detect my deepest feelings.
One The tiniest quirks of my handwriting reveal everything going on inside me.
All You know what I’m going to say before I’ve thought it through.
One I look around at the world, and you are there;
All I look within my psyche, and you are there;
One emotion and intellect are one to you.
All You know me better than I know myself.
One I could not stand knowing myself that well – I need some hidden corners still to discover, some mysteries still to unfold.
All Only you can cope with total knowledge.
One How can I have a life of my own?
All If I study science, you are there.
One If I explore economics, you are there.
All From charmed quarks to exploding galaxies,
One from icebergs to dinosaurs to industrial toxins – Wherever I turn, you will turn up too.
All You insinuate yourself into every crevice of my life.
One Even if I bury myself in my work, you break in, and upset my careful applecarts.
All You drag me forward by my lapels;
One In the small of my back you keep shoving me.
All I cannot keep you out of my life. You are my permanent partner.
One I have nothing to hide from you.
All Go ahead – look into my soul!
One Make me fit to share life completely with you.
From the Epistle – Romans 8:12-25
From the Gospel – Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
One This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ
All Thanks be to God.
Our Church Tithes and Offerings
Offertory
Grant us, God, the grace of giving, with a spirit large and free, that ourselves and all our living we may offer faithfully.
God, the seeds of generosity and abundance are revealed in these gifts. Receive our offerings and commitments and transform them into care for the hurting, support for the grieving, and celebration for the rejoicing. Bless all the gifts we offer this day. Amen.
Prayer of Thanksgiving, Intercession & Lord’s Prayer
Go into the world renewed and refreshed, having drunk deeply from the well of God’s life-giving water during worship today. Go into the world, knowing that others also thirst and that the story of how God’s love has touched our own life, can help to heal and transform others.
Postlude
Thought For Today
Blessed are those who can give without remembering, receive without forgetting.