A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
Seventh Sunday of Easter 10:30 am
Meditation
You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, you still have to find this part of ourselves inside. ~ Sue Monk Kidd
“An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.” ~ Spanish Proverb
From There to Here: We Gather
Prelude
Welcome
¨ Call To Worship Charles Hoffman, Reader
One: Are you looking up or looking down? What have you come expecting? What is it that you hope for? What will rise for you today?
All: We hold the mystery in our hands: the extraordinary moment wrapped in the ordinary day, the divine shining amidst lives seeking and serving.
One: Then let us seek God together, high and low. Christ rises in this hour to center our hearts and minds. Let us worship and see what the Lord is setting before us. This might be the place!
All: This might be the day!
One: God, Your love embraces, your service calls. Like a mother who has borne us in love, guide us this day to deep purpose and holy joy that we may become our best selves, rising in mission with you.
All: Amen!
¨ Hymn #260 Hail the Day that Sees Christ Rise Gwalchmai
- Hail the day that sees Christ rise, Alleluia! To a throne in paradise; Alleluia! Christ, the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia! Enters now the highest heaven. Alleluia!
- Christ, for you high triumph waits, Alleluia! Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia! You have conquered death and sin; Alleluia! You, our Sovereign, enter in! Alleluia!
- See! The nail-marked hands above; Alleluia! Sing of God’s redeeming love; Alleluia! Hark! Christ’s words our hearts assure; Alleluia! “I will send a Comforter!” Alleluia!
- Christ for us still intercede, Alleluia! By your suffering for us plead; Alleluia! Make us worthy of the place, Alleluia! Which you offer us by grace. Alleluia!
¨ 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.
Word and Worship
Special Music Blessed Assurance Union Church Orchestra
Scripture Reading Ephesians 1:15-23
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Children’s Moment as the children return to their seats we sing:
May God’s blessings 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.
Scripture Reading Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Sermon “Um, I think I hear MoM calling…” Rev. Kent Gilbert
Video Reflection
Living Prayer
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.
Offertory
Prayer and Reflection Questions
You Will Be My Witnesses: What have you witnessed that is worth your heart’s work? Sure, you’ve seen and told about tragedy, accidents, insults, affronts. But to what might you “witness” of good news? Even if you never speak a word of it to anyone, take time in your prayer today to make a list of what you have seen heal, restore, inspire, redirect, or birth true good. What will you do with your list? Consider opening yourself to who might need to know what you’ve seen. What do you need in order to be able to tell them?
Bearing Up: As we celebrate mother’s day we can lift all who have loved with a mother’s love even if they have never born physical children. Which persons and ideas mother you? How have you put fierce protective wise reckless love into your world? For those for whom “mother” is a hard word or this is a hard day because of unspeakable losses and regrets, what presence will you offer? Whatever your status or circumstance, let your prayer and thoughts give birth to what needs care in your world, in your life. Ask for what will help.
Sung Response
A Chance for Generosity: www.easytithe.com/union
A community of caring relies on support. Your recurring or one-time donation will make a ministry of healing, justice, and teaching available to all in need.
¨ Use your smart phone or computer and go to www.easytithe.com/union. No registration required, but registering once makes future generosity simply an amount and a click.
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¨ Give by Mail to: 200 Prospect St., Berea, KY 40403
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
Prayers of the Community Charles Hoffman, Reader
Lord of past, present and future, we are unclear where we have come from, hardly know what to do with ourselves in the “now,” and sometimes fear what might be coming next. So when you call and we look confused, or down instead of up, or when we persist in looking up where Jesus went, instead of around where Jesus still is, forgive us and help us.
By your commission may we live your love into our world and into the corners of every heart shadowed here. As we rise to the work, help us lift those who are wounded. Help us find ways to heal everyone ill, and to cure the sicknesses of soul and society that break your heart and mock our covenants.
We are witnesses to your mission and message of hope. With your risen and rising Son, may we all give birth to honest reconciliation for our past, care in the moment so all may love and thrive, and to a world where lives of dignity and worth are expected for all and withheld from none. Into all the world, send us, Lord. This we pray in the name of the risen Christ who taught us to reach to you as…
Our Lord’s Prayer
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
¨ Hymn #530 God, Our Author and Creator Jefferson
- 1. God our Author and Creator, in whose life we find our own, make our daily witness greater, by our lives make your love known. Help us show how love embraces those whom fear and greed downtrod; in all yearning hearts and faces let us see a child of God.
- 2. Like those first apostles, Savior, give us strength to love and serve: when our fainting spirits waver, fire our hearts and steel our nerve. Teach us wisdom and compassion: bid our restless thoughts be still; by your guidance help us fashion lives conformed unto your will.
- 3. Keep us faithful, Holy Spirit, help us bear the message true, that at last all lands may hear it: “God is love; Christ died for you.” Join our lives in mighty chorus till we come from every place, with all those who went before us, to the fullness of God’s grace.
Community Connections
Announcements
We share opportunities for Beloved Community and ways to serve. Please see the listing of church & community events, prayers, and notices in the pages following the service.
Lighting the Justice Candle to Lead us Forth
Hope’s Wings Domestic Violence Program was established in 2006 by a group of committed community members at First Christian Church in Richmond, KY. These founders identified a need for domestic violence services for women and children in Madison County. This identified need quickly turned to a program committed to providing emergency housing, outreach, and education to the community. The safehouse they run out of has been a safe haven for over 800 women and children, and the Hope’s Wings Program has served and educated thousands more in Madison County and surrounding communities. If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship and needs help or would like to speak with someone about domestic violence, confidential help is available 24/7 through their helpline at: 1-859-623-4095
Hope’s Wing staff can assist callers in safety planning, respond to general questions about domestic violence, provide referrals, and share additional information about our programs and services. More information is available at hopeswings.org
¨ Benediction The God of Second Chances David Haas
Those who are able & willing are invited to fill the aisles as we sing the Benediction Response together. If you’re at home or in the balcony, you are part of the embrace too. The embrace is as wide as God’s love!
Mothers Day Proclamation
Written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870, as a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The appeal was tied to Howe’s feminist conviction that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
Our Prayers for Others
¨ 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 (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer cycle: union-church.org/ministries/prayer) Let us hold the people of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal; and our brothers and sisters at Farristown Baptist Church in our hearts, and pray for them today and throughout the week.
¨ All the people of Ukraine for their safety and sovereignty. Prayers also that the government of Russia will turn to reason & respect for their own peoples’ lives as well as for Ukrainian families.
¨ All those affected by the devastating losses in the current conflict in the Middle East.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Jan Hamilton, Betsy Hoefer, Dorie Hubbard, Lois Morgan, Sara Parker, Cheryl Payne, Alva Peloquin, Laura Robie, Sally Zimmerman.
¨ All those suffering from mental strain, trauma, and disease: may God soothe and heal all who are troubled.
¨ Members and Friends who need safer housing and income security.
¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.
¨ Barb Taylor, recovering well at home from a stroke.
¨ NoraRuth Jenkins, recovering from two recent surgeries.
¨ David, a friend of Claudia Munson-Schrumpf, struggling with a rare autoimmune condition.
¨ Debby Gray, recovering from emergency surgery. MealTrain: mealtrain.com/trains/k0yrvr
¨ Several of our beloved church family have experienced recent losses. We grieve the passing of Lois Dodson, mother of Eric; Delores Turnbull, aunt of Ellen Suters, and Anita Marshall, a friend of many in the congregation.
¨ The Oliver/Robinson family at the death of Brandy Oliver Brown, at home, surrounded by family, after a 10-year cancer battle.
¨ Will Guild, husband of Katie Morgan, with a serious brain injury, in Roanoke, Virginia; and Katie as she navigates responsibility and care.
¨ For all those caring for others in their illnesses and needs: may God give them both strength and encouragement in this work of costly love.
¨ Congratulations to Brice and Meaghan Spencer-Catlett (daughter of Maureen and Bruce Spencer) at the birth of their baby Frances “Franny” Nora Catlett on May 5, 8 lbs even 21 inches long.
¨ Grace Virginia Hutchins, born May 2 to Laurel and Seth! May God bless her life and fill it with great love!
¨ Chris and Grace McKenzie, at the birth of their son, Alexander Loyal Todd McKenzie on Thursday, April 18. Meal Train: mealtrain.com/gmm0g8
¨ Erikke Meadows’ mom, Prudy Meadows, who has COPD and is a possible lung begun cancer diagnosis.
¨ For Mothers who have been blessings to their children, that their work and memory might give life through us in new ways! For all who, with a Mother’s grit and grace, are forging families of every kind. And for all for whom “mother” is a difficult word today and brings mixed feelings with shadows of pain or sorrow. May God’s hand reveal every blessing that can be wrought from trial or tragedy and protect each heart with care and compassion.
¨ Celebrations with Prayers of Joy!
Birthdays: Today, May 12 – Karl Holland, Neil Mecham; 13 – Wayne Dollins; 14 – Andrew Garrett, Matt Willis; 15 – Betty Hibler; 18– Ruth McLain Smith; 19 – Carla Baumann, Courtney Parrish
Anniversaries: Today, May 12 – Ed & Carol Poston; 18 – David & Sarah Vaughn
If we haven’t got your important dates, let us know. We’ll help you get connected in FellowshipOne Go!
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