A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union

Second Sunday of Advent December 7, 2014, 10:30 am

Meditation
The least we can do is to make his coming no more difficult than the earth makes it for the spring when it wants to come.

                                                                                —Rainer Maria Rilke

From There to Here

Hymn Sing           Choose Your Favorites!
Welcome & Announcements
Prelude     Masters in This Hall    arr. M. Hayes
Hebrew Scripture Lesson                       Isaiah 40:1-11
Lighting the Second Advent Candle         
The Advent Wreath tradition reaches back to pre-Christian northern Europeans who lit candles awaiting the winter solstice. By the 1500s, both Lutherans and Catholics had adapted the Advent Wreath as a devotional way to prepare for the coming of Christ, the Light of the World. Each week as we wait through Advent, we light a new candle representing an aspect of the light God intends for all people. This Sunday the candle of PEACE is lit.
One:     O God, we light the second candle of Advent.
One:     We seek your comfort. Both mighty and tender, you come. Prepare our hearts to be transformed by you.
One:     Isaiah announced God’s coming to a people exiled in a broken and parched wilderness. He declared that God’s redemption would make a highway in the desert and change the rough places into plain. God would come as a shepherd—feeding, leading, and cradling the weary flock. This Advent, we seek such a God.
All:     Saving God, look upon your world and heal the land and all people. Prepare us to be changed from our old ways. This Advent, teach us to be tender in mercy and fierce for justice that true peace may come to all. Amen.
*  Opening Hymn #101       Comfort, Comfort        Psalm 42
*  Passing the Peace of Jesus 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 hope.

The Word in our Midst

Anthem    The People Who Walked in Darkness Jayne Southwick Cool

Union Church Choir

The only Son from heaven, foretold by ancient seers, by God the Father given, in human form appears. No sphere his light confining, no star so brightly shining as Jesus, our Morning Star, Light of the world. Glory be to God on high!
When in God’s time appointed, the Christ, the virgin-born comes as a king anointed, and dark night turns to morn. A choir of angel voices praise God as earth rejoices in Jesus, our Morning Star, Light of the world. Glory be to God on high!
The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined. For a child has been born for us, God’s Son given to us; and power will rest upon his shoulder and he shall be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined. His authority shall grow continually and peace shall be eternal for descendants of David and his kingdom. He will determine it and sustain it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore, till the end of the age.
The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined.  Jesus, our Morning Star, Light of the world.  Glory be to God on high!
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 Children’s Moment, children grades K-3 are invited to Children’s Church, which takes place in the chapel.  If this is your child’s first time attending Children’s Church, please accompany them to fill out a registration form.  Otherwise, children are welcome to follow volunteers to their worship spaces. For children preschool & under, care is available in the Nursery, downstairs off the Community Room. Please pick up your children in the Chapel after the service.
Gospel Lesson                  Mark 1:1-8
Sermon     Fear Not: Peace Makers and Peace Takers   Rev. Kent Gilbert

Gifts given for Love to flow

Call to Offering
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 to those in need via many external agencies.
This can now be done online or by text to  859-448-3403 (Example: Text “$50.00 Offering” to contribute to the ongoing ministries, or add “youth,” or “missions” or designation of your choice to benefit one in particular.)
Your contribution is peace made visible. Thank you!
 Offertory             Veni Emmanuel           arr. R. Koury
*   Doxology To God all glorious heavenly light;   Old Hundredth
                  To Christ revealed in earthly night;
                  To God the spirit now we raise
                  Our grateful hymn of thankful praise. Amen.

Being and Becoming One

* Invitation to Communion
One:     God be with you.
All:      And also with you.
One:     Lift up your hearts.
All:      We lift our hearts in prayer.
One:     Let us give thanks to God.
All:      It is good to give God thanks and praise.
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.
Silent Prayers and Prayers of the Community
Communion Song           Savior of the Nations, Come   C. Moklebust
Handbell solo, Pearl Marshall
Communion Prayer
One:     Like others who have gone before us, we hear the voice in the wilderness calling us to change and be changed, to reform and be reformed, to challenge the church, and to allow ourselves to be challenged, that we might better serve you as the Body of Christ.  With all the saints who live beside us, whose weaknesses and strengths are woven with our own, we praise you, O Lord.
One:     We still come to the waters of life, seeking to be washed again, called and sent.
One:     With his words and actions, Jesus taught us that the ways of God are different from the ways of the world. We are called to be your peacemakers, to hunger and thirst for what is right, and to offer comfort and mercy to others. With all who have taught your “way in the wilderness” we give you thanks and praise as we sing:
Communion Sanctus                   please join in singing: 
Words of Institution
One:     The one sent by God invited saints and sinners to dine with him and be his friends.  And Jesus invites us – saints and sinners – to this meal, in which we  can taste and see, experience and remember the goodness of our God who feeds us like a shepherd.
High Voices:  Be present in our hope in this holy time:
Low Voices:             in the silence of power and the power of silence;
Piano side:               in the throne rooms of the rich and the shanties of the      poor;
Bell side:       in overfed communities and underfed souls;
One:     Gather up hope in this bread and cup.  Break open the good news of your incarnation: on parched farmlands and frightened cities; in the hearts of the proud and the longings of the lowly.
One:     Even when the world rejected Jesus—on the very night he was betrayed—he continued to feed others with strength and hope.  He sat with his friends, took bread and blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them saying,
All:      “This is my body, given for you.”  Open us and feed us, O God.
One:     After supper, he took a cup, offered you thanks, and gave it to his disciples saying,
All:    “This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sin.  Whenever you share this cup, remember me.”  Redeem and strengthen us, O God.
One:     Come now, Holy Spirit.  Gather up the good news in this communion.  Come now, God.  Where once we ate the bread of tears nourish us now with the abundance of your love made real in a small child born long ago and far away, yet real and living now in our midst.  For all humanity awaits the life you give.  Make your advent here in our hearts.
Serving One Another
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.
If it is not your tradition to receive, you are invited to join in prayers for the unity of the Spirit and all people, within your tradition.
Blessing for Those Who Will Receive at Home
Members who have been designated to carry communion to those who could not be with us this morning are invited forward at this time. The elements from our meal will go with our blessing and prayers for our continued unity in the Spirit. If you would like serve by taking communion to others, you are very welcome to do so and are invited to volunteer.
Prayer of Thanksgiving

From Here to There

*  Closing Hymn     Wild and Lone, the Prophet’s Voice    Aberystwyth
 Benediction
Postlude    Symphonia on Hyfrydol          arr. K. McChesney
Handbell solo, Pearl Marshall
———————————————
*  Please rise in body or in spirit
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 Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger and our brothers and sisters at Dixie Park Cornerstone Baptist Church in your hearts, and pray for them.
Please also hold these concerns in your prayers, today and throughout the week:
* Those in harm’s way in service of our country, and those who wait and worry for them.
* For the victims of violence everywhere, and especially under the influence of racial prejudice and simmering fear. Peace to Ferguson, Missouri, and everywhere our madness reigns.
* Our church family members in nursing homes, or who are homebound:  Edith Hansen, Klara Welsh, Bernice Robertson, Nancy Jones, Mary Miller, Averill Kilbourne, Alva Peloquin, Ruth Butwell
* Madalyn (LeLe) Dodson, recovering from hand surgery.
* Rachel Shuler, dear friend of Rev. Rachel, recovering from surgery in W.VA.
* The family of Melissa and Susan Doring-Zook, dealing with multiple deaths in their families.
* Jim Wallace’s family, at his passing.
* Peggy Coyne
* The Culp family, at the birth of John & Ramona’s great grandson, John William Culp, born November 22 in Sacramento, CA. Parents are Julie and Jason Culp. Mazel tov!
* Muse Watson, recovering from heart catheterization
* Rev. Rachel  and family, at her great aunt, Flo Baughman’s death
* Merlin Kindel
* Alva Peloquin, who just celebrated her 94th birthday
* Nancy Hindman, recovering at home from a punctured lung
Announcements 
You Matter! Please Sign the Register, Check in on Facebook/Twitter and try a nametag! It’s hard to get to know people elsewhere, but we don’t want it that way at church.  Let’s all try to get to know each other better.
About the Communionware Cover: This Advent cover is designed to honor the Holy Family, using only methods available in the first century.
      The blue wool center is for Mary. It is made from locally-raised wool, hand-washed, picked, and carded, handspun on a drop spindle, handwoven on a frame loom, and dyed with indigo at PeaceCraft.
      The silver lace is for the Christ Child. It is Armenian needle lace, which has been made in the middle east for millennia and is also known as “Nazareth lace.” However, it is made of 21st century fiber, to represent the intrusion into Mary’s life of the frightening, the wonderful, that which she could not know, prepare for, or control. She could only say No. . . or. . .Yes! Let it be so!
      The wooden beads are for Joseph. They are made of olive wood from his homeland, and were hand-carved in Bethlehem, with tools he knew and loved in his carpenter’s shop.
      The best part? This lace was intended and designed to be eight-sided. . . but I did the math wrong. . . so now it is that rare and difficult thing, a seven-sided shape; linking it to an ancient holy number of the Bible.
      Come, Emmanuel!
      Designed and made with love and gratitude by Debbonnaire Kovacs, 2007-8.
Today and All Advent Long: Nurture & Care Breakfasts, Sundays, 9-10:15 am: The Nurture & Care Board would love to nurture and care for you! Come join us for a casual oatmeal breakfast Sunday mornings in Advent. Oatmeal, festive toppings, coffee, friends old and new: we want to hang out with you!
Together we make a supportive community. Grab a bowl of oats on your way to choir or Sunday School, or just come on early to church. Sit and enjoy a conversation with friends while your children attend Sunday School. We look forward to seeing you!
Musicians Needed!! On December 21, we will be having a Sounds of the Seasons musical Sunday! As part of the service this Sunday, the choirs will be singing, the bells will be ringing, and we will hear some of the wonderful musical talent from members of our congregation! This is a wonderful opportunity to bless our church with joyous music to set us in the mood for Christmas! If you, or a group, (young, old, in-between) would like to participate in the service, please contact Gabe Evans, gevans@union-church.org, for more details. All genres and types of music are welcome!

Dancers needed for  Christmas Eve: For many years, the early Christmas Eve Service (5:30 pm)  has begun with the Light being brought forth by dancers, carrying  candles down the aisles and doing simple movements in the front of the Sanctuary before lighting the Advent Candles.

      If you would like to be one of those persons,  please contact Carla Gilbert at 985-1144.  The choreography will be very simple (we are carrying lighted candles) and depends on who and how many are participating.  The only requirement is that you are to able to spend a relatively short time rehearsing before Christmas Eve (usually on the Sunday before Christmas Eve after the worship service).

Annual Caroling Party, Wednesday, December 17 (caroling: v.; to go about outdoors in a group singing Christmas carols, especially in a cheerful manner — Webster’s Dictionary)

      And that’s what you are invited to do on Wednesday evening, December 17 – – come one and all. Following the WNL meal of hot soup to warm you up, we will divide into groups and bring some Christmas Cheer to many in our church family and beyond.
At the end of the evening, we’ll gather back in the Community Room for cookies and hot drinks to end the evening. All ages and singing abilities welcome — the “cheerful manner” mentioned above is the most important qualification! Please join us.
Danish American Christmas Celebration at the Folk Center 5:30 — 8:00 pm Santa’s workshop, music, singing, dancing, storytelling, flags, snacks….and more! All welcome! No charge, donations accepted
New Year, New Directory! We’re going to produce a new directory in January. If your info – and your family’s – has been correct (birthdays, emails, etc.) – you don’t need to do anything. BUT if something has changed (or if you’ve added cell #s or emails) OR you haven’t been in the Directory before OR you want to send us a new photo, we’d love it!  We print names, birthdays, emails, phone numbers & cell numbers (with permission, of course), and produce printed or pdf copies. If you have a spouse/partner or children who don’t sign in on Sunday mornings but you’d like in the Directory, please let us know that too. We won’t publish the Directory on the website without password protection.
Budget meeting: Union Church’s annual budget meeting to consider the 2015 budget will be January 11, 2015, after worship & lunch