A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
September 6, 2026 10:30 am
Meditation
“What we do in love and kindness is all we’ll ever leave behind.” ~ Carrie Newcomer
From There to Here: We Gather
Prelude
Welcome
Welcome to this service of worship! 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! During the service, you are invited to rise in body or in spirit, standing or sitting, at points in the service marked “<>.”
¨ Invocation All We Need Is Here
All we need is here! All we need is here! God is among us, All we need is here!
¨ Call to Worship Deb Beishline, Reader
¨ From the “The Mad Farmer, flying the flag Rough Branch, secedes from the union”
Come all ye conservatives and liberals who want to conserve the good things and be free, come away from the merchants of big answers, whose hands are metalled with power; from the union of anywhere and everywhere by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price; from the union of work and debt, work and despair; from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.
From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,secede into care for one another and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.
Come into the life of the body, the one body granted to you in all the history of time. Come into the body’s economy, its daily work, and its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
Come into the body’s thanksgiving, when it knows and acknowledges itself a living soul.
Come into the dance of the community, joined in a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal love of women and men for one another and of neighbors and friends for one another.
~ Wendell Berry
¨ Hymn God, Be the Love to Search & Keep Me Green Tyler
¨ Prayer of Approach & Confession
¨ Words of Assurance Come, Bring Your Burdens to God South African English Trans: Barbara Clark, Mairi Munro, Martine Stemerick
Come, bring your burdens to God (3x) For Jesus will never say no.
¨ Passing the Peace
All who come to this sanctuary are welcome companions on the journey of faith. Please turn to those nearest you and greet them with words of peace.
Word and Worship
Anthem May a Rainbow Run Beside You Burrows Union Church Choir
May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam. May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue, and may happiness fill your heart each day, and bless you your whole life through.
May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures. May a rainbow run beside you, the best to you and yours. And happiness fill your heart each day and bless you your whole life through.
Scripture Reading Exodus 12:1-14
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
“Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord ; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”
~ New Revised Standard Version, updated
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 Matthew 18:15-20
“If your brother and sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
~ New Revised Standard Version, updated
Sermon Labors of Liberation Rev. Kent Gilbert
Video Reflection
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 our hearts in prayer.
One: Let us give thanks to God.
All: It is right to give God thanks and praise. We are stepping into holy ground.
One: Jesus sat with all sorts, the many different colors of humanity, but mainly those excluded, and broke bread to make a community out of mere company, and to make family out of friends.
One: So along with everyone the world has turned its back on, along with everyone hungry, and everyone hungry for justice and truth, along with everyone abused as a stranger and foreigner, along with everyone we’re not getting along with, along with everyone we might label as “weird,” or “wrong,” along with everyone who questions, doubts, and even denies, along with every prejudice that has ever been flung, along with every one made poor by other’s riches, or enriched by graces we could not have deserved: you, you and I, are welcomed at this table. You need not be a member of this church or any church to partake. All are guests at this table as love demands. Let us pray…
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.
Communion Prayer
One: Loving God, Source of all, we thank you and praise you with our lips and with our lives, that, having created us and all things through your Word, you welcome our prayer and praise.
All: For the goodness of creation, and the glory of redemption, we praise you.
One: For the law of holiness, inviting our obedience, and the call of prophets, rebuking our disobedience, we praise you.
All: With all that is, seen and unseen, and with the faithful of every time and place, we join in this hymn of praise and thanksgiving:
Sanctus Please sing each line after Rev. Kent, words will be on the screen
Words of Institution
One: Loving God, Holy One, we offer you praise and thanksgiving over this bread and cup, because in Jesus you have joined yourself to us, uniting heaven and earth.
One: Now, therefore, we gratefully remember: Jesus’ birth into our humanity, compassion for our suffering, intimacy with our frailty, rebuke of our pride, bearing of the cross with its death, and rising from the tomb by the power of God.
One: On the night before he died, it was Jesus who took a loaf of bread, gave you thanks, broke it, and said,
All: “Take, and eat; whenever you do this, remember me.”
One: Likewise, after supper, he took the cup, saying,
All: “This is the new covenant, remember me.”
One: Loving God, creative Power, blessing your name, we seek your Spirit.
One: Make us, while many, united in holy purposes. Bridge our differences and mend our broken places. Make of our pieces, your lasting peace.
All: Come, Holy Spirit!
One: Come and bless to us this bread and cup, that those who are hungry may be fed, and that those who are fed may hunger for justice in Christ’s name.
All: Amen.
Serving One Another
All who seek the love of God are welcome at this table and are invited to freely receive from it. By tradition, unfermented grape juice is used in the cup on Sunday mornings. If it is not convenient to come forward, the elements can be brought to your seat.
Living Prayer
Call to Prayer
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. Next week, let us hold the people of Benin, Ivory Coast and Togo; and our siblings at Blue Lick Missionary Baptist Church in our hearts, and pray for them today and throughout the week.
Embodied Prayer
You are invited to reflect and pray at the candle table. You may also choose to source the essential ingredient of solitude and private prayer, remaining with your own thoughts in your pew.
“Passing Over” or “Passover?”
Hebrew scripture describes a night before the great breakout from Egyptian slavery: all the preparation needed to survive the 10th plague and to be ready to flee when Pharaoh relented because of it.
In your prayers, converse with God about changing things you’ve ignored or passed over, to something that can be a Passover experience:
¨ From what do you need liberation?
¨ In whatever break you need to make what preparations will guard your soul and make you ready?
¨ Be as still as you can and listen all through the week.
Practical Community Practice Prayer…
Jesus’ followers have always been a messy, inconsistent collection of passionate persons. There always was, and probably always will, be conflicts, grievances, and frictions between us. Knowing and honestly acknowledging “pinch points” in our communities can help ground us in a very Jesus-centered prayer practice that Matthew records in today’s gospel.
It might be summarized as:
We’re all part of the body, so you can’t just run away from your liver or lungs or spleen. Get heard, but make sure you listen. Speak your truth but look for common ground. If you can’t hear or aren’t being heard, invite others to support a healthy process for both (not just take your side), and widen the circle only as much as needed to find resolution. Even when that doesn’t seem to work, hold open room for later miracles; in other words don’t pen up your resentment, but don’t blast others with your pain. Seek the common ground, the working whole.
Offertory “Vespers” Stanley Kramer, violin
A Chance for Generosity: 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 easytithe.com/union. No registration required, but registering once makes future generosity simply entering an amount and a click.
¨ Baskets for checks or cash are located at the head of each aisle for those who wish to make an in-person donation.
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¨ Give by Mail to: 200 Prospect St., Berea, KY 40403.
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
¨ Doxology Words: St. Patrick, adapted Kent Gilbert Tune: Bunessan
Christ be beside me, Christ be before me, Christ be behind me, my rock and my stay; Christ be within me, Christ be below me, Christ be above me guiding my way.
Community Prayer of Thanksgiving Deb Beishline, Reader
One: In twos and threes we gather. In trial and temptation we come to you. In hope and in service we lay down our lives in a living donation to the kin-dom you help us imagine. And with humility and commitment we gather strength from your table of holy love.
Gather us for blessing, teach us for right living, feed us that we might feed others, and then send us, joyful into the labors Love demands. We ask your care for those who are struggling this day. We bring them to your heart that your face might shine on whatever darkness surrounds them. By the power of communion with you, we find the strength for repair and the foundations for forgiveness. With the bread of each meal, in conflict, in contentment, in twos and threes, may you liberate your people for grace. In the name of the freedom-maker, account-taker, and holy manna baker, Jesus, we pray as he taught, reaching to you as….
Our Lord’s Prayer
Our Maker, Our Mother, and Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kin-dom 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 kin-dom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
¨ Hymn O God of Every Nation Llangofflan
~Reprinted with permission using OneLicense #A-723786
From Here to There
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
Wendell Erdman Berry (d. Aug. 31, 2026) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William.
Berry believed in a life rooted in nature and place, and turned a skeptical eye toward modern technology. In a 1987 essay in Harper’s, “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” he said, “I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, family and community stability, good work.”
From Silas House: “Wendell Berry has passed. Another great light gone out,” the former Kentucky poet laureate wrote. “There are so many ways he influenced me but most of all what I keep thinking is that he was so good to me. Generous with his time and words. Complex. Brilliant. Revolutionary,” House said.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~ from The Peace of Wild Things
¨ Benediction
¨ Benediction Response All We Need Is Here
All we need is here! All we need is here! God is among us, All we need is here!
Our Prayers for Others
¨ 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.
¨ Those in danger in the continuing war in Iran. For the leaders of nations to set aside assassination and warfare in favor of just, diplomatic solutions to conflict.
¨ We pray for our country, and those who are directly affected by the actions and inaction of our government to address the needs of its people and the world.
¨ Our neighbors experiencing housing and food insecurity.
¨ Victims of the flooding in Nepal, that God might provide protection and consolation. One Great Hour of Sharing (our Palm Sunday Offering each year) is on the scene.
¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.
¨ The children and staff of Samuel’s Kids School and Orphanage in Uganda.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Dorie Hubbard, Susan Kramer, Hattie Parks, Alva Peloquin, Laura Robie, Theresa Scherf.
¨ Charlie Hoffman, recovering from successful surgery last week.
¨ Congratulations to Emma White and Josh Louis, married on Saturday in a lovely ceremony in the Red River gorge! Prayers of joy and gratitude for them!
¨ In gratitude for the life of Wilma Miracle, mother of church family member Britt Miracle, who died Sept. 3, at 100. Rev. Kent will officiate at her service Tuesday, at Hopper Funeral Home in Barbourville.
¨ Healing prayers for Tom McClure, recuperating from recent complication s with knee surgery.
¨ Travel mercies for Don & Rhonda Cardwell, heading to Canada for the month.
¨ Ron Rosen, recovering from throat surgery. May he soon be making joyful noises again
¨ For Mary McConnell and the extended family and friends, at the passing of her sister, Catherine.
¨ Prayer request received online. “S” asks for prayer for peace in their home and neighborhood.
¨ Denis Burton, recovering from abdominal surgery. At printing, his hope was to be released over the weekend to recuperate at home.
¨ Amber Lawson, Deb & Terry Beishline’s daughter-in-law, diagnosed with breast cancer.
¨ Doris Mosley, Deb Beishline’s mother, anticipating treatment for gall bladder problems.
¨ Celebrations with Prayers of Joy!
Birthdays: Today, Sept. 6 – Chris Green; 7 – Noah Broomfield; 8 – Matthew Perkins Coppola; 9 – Hailey Biggs; 10 – Laura Nagle; 11 – Lisa Shroyer, Mary Lou Wiese, Cameron Stites; 13 – Maranda Weckman
Anniversaries: Sept. 9 – Jim & Dana Wangsgard
If we haven’t got your important dates, let us know. We’ll help you get connected in FellowshipOne Go!
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