Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
Fifth Sunday of Lent
April 7, 2019 10:30 am
Meditation
Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ― Rumi
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it in another.
― Thomas Merton
From there to Here: We Gather
Welcome & Announcements
Welcome to this service of worship! During the service, you are invited to rise in body or in spirit, standing or sitting, at points in the service marked “ ”.”
Please sign in using the pew folder, passing it back down the row so all can greet one another by name, and place the sheet in an offering plate. We’re glad you’re here!
Prelude Sketches in Color Robert Starer Strings Trio
The Call
Love is reckless; not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Loves comes on strong, consuming herself unabashed. Yet in the midst of suffering love proceeds like a millstone, hard surfaced and straight forward. Having died to self interest, she risks everything and asks for nothing. Love gambles away every gift God bestows. Without cause God gave us Being; without cause give it back again. Gambling yourself away is beyond any religion. Religion seeks grace and favor, but those who gamble these away are God’s favorites, for they neither put God to the test nor knock at the door of gain and loss. — Rumi
¨ Hymn #206 Black A Woman Came Who Did Not Count the Cost Wexford Carol
¨ Passing the Peace of Christ
All who come to this sanctuary are welcome companions on this day! You are invited to turn to those nearest you and greet them with words of peace and hospitality.
The Living Word among us
Anthem Arise, My Soul, Arise Dan Forrest
Union Church Choir
Arise, my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears: the bleeding Sacrifice in my behalf appears: before the Throne, my Surety stands, my name is written on His hands. Five bleeding wounds He bears, received on Calvary, they pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me: “Forgive her, O, forgive, they cry, “Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry, “nor let that ransomed sinner die.” My God is reconciled, His voice I hear, He owns His child, I can no longer fear; with confidence I now draw nigh, and “Abba, Father, cry. Arise, my soul, arise!
Epistle Lesson Isaiah 43:16-21 (p. 857)
“Do not remember the former things,” the Lord tells suffering Israel, “I am about to do a new thing.”
Children’s Moment As the children return to their seats we sing:
May God’s presence guard, protect and guide you. God bless you, God bless you. Our savior’s loving arms be ever ’round you. God bless you, God bless you.
Following the Children’s Moment, children kindergarten through 5th grade are invited to Children’s Church in Cowan Chapel. They are also welcome to stay in the service if they prefer. The Children’s Worship Center in the back of the sanctuary has toys, books, and drawing materials for children (or parents) who would like help staying present in the service. For children preschool age & under, care is available in the Nursery, downstairs in Room 104 off the playground.
Sung Psalm 126 Robert Rorrer, cantor p. 707
The Psalms were originally musical compositions. During Lent we will pray the psalms in musical form with congregational responses. Please sing the response when invited.
Gospel Lesson Mark 8:27-38 (p. 1205)
Jesus asks ,“who do people say that I am?”
Sermon Rev. Emily Miller
Responding to God’s Love in Communion
Invitation to Communion
One: God be with you!
All: And also with you!
One: Lift up your hearts.
All: We lift them up to God.
One: Let us give thanks to God our Creator.
All: It is right to give God thanks and praise.
One: We gather around this table to reclaim our memories and to risk ourselves in a journey of costly love.
One: We are invited to pause and then to seek for ourselves Jesus’ clarity of vision and passionate resolve, to feel for ourselves the Spirit’s ever-present offering of life, and find in ourselves a remembrance and a readiness to work toward a world restored.
One: Who is welcome here? All who seek and serve the love of God, all who hunger and thirst for righteousness, all who are weary and long for strength in a struggle for justice and who yearn for peace within and without. Let us together prepare in prayer to gather at the table of blessing.
Communion Prayer
One: Lord of all blessing, through your abundant creation and the priceless gift of your son, you have come into our lives, teaching us, cajoling us, lavishing graces… forever suffering our pain and renewing our hope by the costly love and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
One: We come before you in humility. With creation you have set a table for us all to feast, but in the face of bounty we have often created want. The men and women who carried your word to us teach us always of compassion and doing right for others, yet we know we have often let greed or fear guide us instead.
One: Your love has never waned, Lord, nor has your promise that all can be become new. In the fullness of time you sent Jesus who walks with us even still, teaching our hearts the love songs we might have forgotten. For this constant love and the unceasing labors to heal broken people and a broken world, we sing your praises, raising our voices to join your mighty work:
Communion Sanctus Please join in singing:
Words of Institution
One: On the night he was betrayed, we remember that Jesus sat with his disciples and broke bread. He blessed it, lifted it up, and spoke these words:
All: “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
One: Then, after supper was over, he took the cup and blessed it, and said:
All: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
One: Remembering you as we come to the richness of your table, we cannot and we do not forget the rawness of the world and the cry of the poor. We cannot take bread and forget those who are hungry. We cannot drink and forget those who are thirsty. Help us feed others as we are fed.
One: And here we remember that you have offered us not just bread, not just a cup, but your very self in a costly outpouring of love. You did this so that we may be filled and forgiven, healed, blessed, and made new again; that we might have both beauty and bread in our lives.
All: Ground us in your love that we may be strong and discerning for the journey. Bless us, as we open our hearts and hands to receive, and celebrate the goodness of the world. Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Amen.
Living Prayer
Prayer in Action and Reflections
What are some of the goals or high callings you are pressing toward? Ponder and pray over your relationship with risk. Have you avoided it? At what cost?In what seems like an empty wilderness, what seeds can risk sow that will bring forth songs of joy?
Our Offering Offering baskets are placed in the aisle, and can also be brought to your seat. Our gifts help sustain this particular community of caring by sustaining the building, pastors and staff, and all the materials that make our ministry of healing, justice, and teaching available to all in need. In addition, a good portion of our contributions flows out to aid those in need via many external agencies.
Many friends give online, and you can use your smart phone or computer and go to www.easytithe.com/union. You don’t have to register to make a contribution, but if you do, it can make future generosity that much easier. You can even give by text! Text to 859-448-3403 (Example: Text “$50.00 Offering)
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
Community Sharing Table During Lent, one of the many ways you can kneel and kiss the ground is through your contributions at the Community Sharing Table. We are considering how our contributions can walk along with our scriptures each week.
Week 5: Emergency kits for disaster relief (the poor are always with us)
Week 6: (Palm Sunday): One Great Hour of Sharing
Receiving Strength for the Journey: The Bread and Cup All who seek the love of God are welcome at this meal and are invited to freely receive from it. We will share the elements today by intinction, dipping the bread in the cup. When invited please come to one of the stations by exiting your pew to the left and returning by the right. If it is not convenient to come forward, the elements can be brought to your seat by signaling to the usher. All the bread is gluten-free, and the chalices are filled with non-alcoholic grape juice.
Use the Labyrinth as Meditation During the season of Lent, you will have three ways of walking a labyrinth here in the sanctuary.
- Your bulletin cover will feature a different finger labyrinth each week, which you can travel prayerfully without leaving your seat.
- For this season, the entire sanctuary is our labyrinth. As you walk, whether to a prayer station or for another reason, walk mindfully, pondering the paths your life is taking right now. Consider taking the long route some-times, around a set of pews.
- One of your destinations could be the labyrinth station in the front corner by the Peace Bell.
Kneeling in Prayer We are enlarging our prayer corner for you to kneel for your unique prayer journey. Each week the articles for contemplation will reflect the lectionary readings for that week.
Record Your Hundred Ways In the children’s corner is a large family star chart for recording and celebrating the actions we have taken in our “Kneel and kiss the ground” focus. If you have participated in one of the suggested actions or in any other way of letting the beauty you love be what you do, put a star or sticker on the chart. There is room to write in more actions, and a marker on the plate rail above the chart for that purpose.
Prayer of Thanksgiving [Unison]
Though broken, we are made whole; lost, we are brought home; empty, we are filled with songs of gladness. We rejoice and give thanks to you, God of reconciling hope, who has graced us with mercy, love, and gifts for healing the world. Amen.
Ringing of the Peace Bell
The Union Church Peace Bell was created by Jeff Enge in honor of Union Church member Carl Eschbach (1904-1998). A twin bell hangs in Berea’s sister province in Japan and is also rung in the hope of peace for all nations.
Gather in a Circle
You are invited to form a large circle around the sanctuary. Feel free to create “arms” of our “amoeba of love” which include those who cannot leave their seats. We will pray the Lord’s Prayer together and then sing our parting blessing responsively, repeating each line after the minister.
One: Our Maker, our Mother, and …
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
From Here to There
¨ The Sending and Blessing
Especially in our prayers
Each week we join millions of Christians who pray for one another through the ecumenical prayer cycle and, locally, the Berea Ministerial Association’s prayer cycle. Let us hold the people of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania and our brothers and sisters at First Baptist Church of Berea in our hearts, and pray for them. Please hold these concerns in your prayers, today and throughout the week.
Prayer requests to be printed may be sent to the office anytime before 10:00 am Fridays.
¨ Children in detention centers, that they may be reunited with their families soon. 15,000 are now detained in the US.
¨ Victims of the New Zealand mosque shooting, and victims of gun violence everywhere.
¨ Prayers for the church leaders from around the country advocating in Washington, DC this weekend as part of Ecumenical Advocacy Days. They ask our prayers as they speak for the restoration of the voting rights act and equal access to our democracy for all people.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes, or who are homebound: Edith Hansen, Nancy Hindman, Loyal Jones, Mary Miller, Alva Peloquin.
¨ Those who are without homes and safe places.
¨ Shirley Carlberg’s sister in her treatment for cancer.
¨ Judy Rowell, recovering at home from heart valve replacement surgery.
¨ For Michelle Hayden’s sister-in-law in her treatment for cancer.
¨ Marie, great-great niece of Dorie Hubbard, battling cancer at 4 years old.
¨ Tonya, Judith Singleton’s daughter-in-law, sick with a bacterial infection.
¨ Michelle Hayden, as she heals.
¨ Paul Jacobs, recovering from arm surgery. There’s a MealTrain set up, if you can help with evening meals while Paul recovers:https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/d9l8ol
¨ Jerry Cooper’s daughter, Debbie, due to have heart catheterization.
¨ Robert Rorrer and the family, at the death of his father, Robert Wayne Rorrer.
Announcements
Union Church
Memory Keepers Support Group will begin April 8, 7:30 in the Wayside Room. Memory Keepers, a support group for caregivers of those with memory loss, which will meet every 2nd and 4th Monday. Plan to attend and learn how we can best minister to each other whether we are the person suffering memory loss, a care giver, or a caring member of our congregation and community. Call Doug Hindman at 859-582-5806 for more info.
The One Great Hour of Sharing offering will be received on Palm Sunday, next week, April 14. One Great Hour of Sharing offering received next week, Palm Sunday. If you are considering a gift, why not a sacrificial gift for each day of Lent?( $1? The cost of a daily cup of coffee for 46 days? Every dollar makes a difference!) Funds will directly support flood relief in the midwest and anti-poverty initiatives around the world in a time of desperate need.
Youth Group Fundraiser extended! Our Youth Group is selling cards as a fundraiser. Buy a box – buy 2 – never get stuck without a card when you need one – order soon!
Come to Wednesday Nite Live! Supper at 5:45 ($5 if able) in the Community Room. Then – Spring Caroling Practice. Also: Youth Group at 6:30, Handbell Rehearsal at 7:00. All welcome! Now that the weather is warming up, we can look forward to a variety of dinner menus on Wednesdays. Soups, stews and chili are great, but so are pasta dishes, casseroles and main dish salads. If you’ve got a hankering to share chicken cacciatore or your favorite green curry, now’s your chance! Shirley will make some complementary dishes and we’ll all get to enjoy some delightful meals. Sign up on the sheet near the desserts and let the good times roll!
Sing to our Neighbors! Sunday, April 14, at 1:30. Let’s meet in the Community Room and carpool to spread our love and joy and the songs we have been practicing to our friends in local care facilities with some Spring Caroling!
Sunday, April 14, 3:00 pm. The Berea College Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, Stephen Bolster conductor, will present their annual spring concert in the sanctuary. The public is invited to attend, and there is no charge for admission.
The program is titled “Joy Ascending.” The first section is in Latin, and begins with Kyrie settings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Josef Rheinberger, followed by other sacred music in Latin in honor of the Lenten season. The Chamber Singers will perform Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs for piano, violin, and choir with Jeremy Mullholland, Chair of the Music Department at EKU, as featured artist. The Concert Choir and Chamber Singers will follow with a group of well-known folksongs including the famous “Simple Gifts” and “Shenandoah,” and a Scottish folksong arrangement accompanied by the Clavere Piano Duo. The end of the program will move from a theme of darkness to a celebration of joy. The Concert choir will perform two songs about faith, and conclude the program with Andrew Maxfield’s Whatever is foreseen in joy and René Clausen’s All that hath life and breath praise ye the Lord. Please come and enjoy an afternoon of contemplative and joyful music!
Lilies for Easter! Easter morning flowers are a glorious way to celebrate the joy of resurrection. You can order sanctuary lilies in honor or memory of loved ones for just $15 with a click! Sales will support our Annual Budget, providing loving care in our many ministries. We’ll see that the lilies are delivered to church. All orders must be received by April 17 to have dedications included in the Easter service bulletin.
April 17, Retirement Workshop. Retirement Accumulation: How much should I save? What type of accounts should I have? Be confident in what you’re saving for retirement when you learn how to build a strong and adaptable financial strategy.
Come at 5:45 p.m. for Wednesday Night Live dinner in the Community Room and stay for the workshop our Thrivent representative Joseph Volpi will give at 6:30 p.m. Also that evening at 6:30 is Kid’s Activity Night, so parents can go to the Thrivent workshop while the kids are having fun!
Country Drive to an Afternoon Easter Egg Hunt! Ally and David Nurre have graciously invited families with children to their home about 25 minutes outside of Berea for an Easter egg hunt at 2:30 on Easter Sunday. They have limited driveway space, so only the first six vehicles will be able to attend. If you are interested, let Laura know and we can arrange a carpool. (joyfulsunflower@ gmail.com or 859.358.0106).
Union Church seeks a nursery worker! If you are 18+, love kids (especially the 0-5 age group) and are available on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, this might be a great opportunity for you. Nursery staff earn $12 / hour and must complete a background check and our free Safe Sanctuaries training. Interested? Contact Laura Nagle (859-358-0106 or joyfulsunflower@gmail.com) for more information.
Want to keep your hands busy during service? There’s a basket in the back of the church with knitting projects started by the knitters among us. You can knit a few rows and pray for the person who will receive the finished item, and then return it to the basket after service for someone else to add their stitches and prayers.
Our Properties Board would like to share with the congregation that the Southeast entrance to the Sanctuary was just given a facelift. John Nugent, a local painter, repaired, prepared and painted the walls, ceilings and door frames from the Sanctuary to the balcony and down to the entrance from outside.
Around Town and Notes & Notices
TODAY! Black Music Ensemble Spring Concert at First Christian Church, 3:00 pm today!
April 16, 6 pm. Development work in Central America. Sarah Junkin Woodard of the Center for Development in Central America will be at the Friends Meeting House in Berea on Tuesday, April 16, at 6:00 pm, 300 Harrison Rd. CDCA has worked in Nicaragua for 30 years, starting co-ops, improving water and sanitation and providing healthcare and training. Doors open at 5:30, and a simple supper will be served. Registra-tion is encouraged: hankfay@gmail.com.
The Census Bureau is hiring now and up to the 2020 Census. You must be 18 years old or older, a US citizen, have transportation, an email address, internet access to apply (you can use a computer here). Pay is $14 an hour + 58 cents a mile driven for the job. Part time, flexible hours. Paid training for 3-5 days. 2020census.gov/jobs
Kitchen Tour to benefit Berea Home Village April 13, 1-5 pm. Spend the afternoon touring lovely kitchens and support Berea Home Village. Help more Berea elders to remain in their homes as they age. Five marvelous kitchens. Get inspired, learn, have fun. You may win a super door prize! Complimentary goodies along the way. Tickets $25 on Eventbrite. Call Katie at 859-358-8610 with questions.
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