A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
November 23, 2022 7:00 pm
Meditation
Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you’re perfectly free. ~ Rumi
The First Path: Recognizing the Inherent Goodness of Creation
The first path invites us to celebrate! The pulse of creation is singing the goodness of God and God’s gift of goodness in all things. We become more aware of the beauty of all that is and tap into gratitude as our first task in creating more goodness in the world.
Prelude
Welcome and Invitation
¨ Sung Response Gathered Here In the Mystery of This Hour
¨ Prayer in 360°
Please stand and join as we look at the goodness of God all around us. As we turn and pray, you are invited to sing the last line of our song when indicated.
¨ Sung Response
You are invited to sing our refrain as a round. You can follow the choir, Rev. Kent or other song leaders as we make a communion of harmony.
¨ Lighting the Christ Candle (unison)
Creator God, we pause to remember that we are surrounded by blessing. From every side, in every direction, we are sustained in paths of grace. You who breathed your breath into us, inspire us to be who you have created us to be so that we might offer our best selves as part of your intended community of life. In thanksgiving, we praise you and humbly offer ourselves in an attitude of gratitude. And all God’s people say, Amen.
¨ Hymn #425 Black For the Fruit of All Creation Ar Hyd y Nos
1 For the fruit of all creation,
Thanks be to God.
For God’s gifts to every nation,
Thanks be to God.
For the plowing, sowing, reaping,
Silent growth while we are sleeping,
Future needs in earth’s safe-keeping,
Thanks be to God.
2 In the just reward of labor,
God’s will is done.
In the help we give our neighbor,
God’s will is done.
In our world-wide task of caring
For the hungry and despairing,
In the harvests we are sharing,
God’s will is done.
3 For the harvests of the Spirit,
Thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit,
Thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us,
For the truths that still confound us,
Most of all, that love has found us,
Thanks be to God.
¨ Passing the Peace
The Second Path: Befriending the Dark Places
On this second path, we recognize with open hearts the pain that coexists with goodness and gratitude. We listen to the groans of the world and the Spirit helps us to grieve and to intercede on behalf of all those who suffer, letting go of fear and bearing light.
Listening
Silence and Sound mingle to bring us to mindfulness. We ring the Peace Bell to call us to holy work.
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.
Letting Go and Holding on with Love
We hold communities in need and loved ones known and unknown in our hearts during our prayers. We bring the light of God’s to our own needs as well, as we pray. Please join in singing the refrain twice when indicated. You are invited to hum, add harmony or participate with movement as we unite through word and song.
Please join in singing “Breathe” Michael Stillwater
Sung Refrain
Lord’s Prayer
Each week we will explore a version of the prayer Jesus taught. This week we encounter a version of the Lord’s prayer translated by Mark Berry, a young pastor of a church in the UK called “safe space.” Let us pray together:
O Breathing Life,
your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Imagine your possibilities now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen.
Special Music We Gather Together Kremser Steve Bolster, soloist
1. We gather together to ask for God’s blessing; to live in community, seeking God’s will. We come now, as sisters and brothers, confessing the sins that divide and the wrong in us still.
2. Beside us forgiving, enabling, sustaining, you call us, O Savior, to life that is new. You draw us away from self-centered complaining. You lead us and guide us in ways that are true.
3. All praise to the Spirit, provider, defender. You offer us freedom to follow or stray, empowering all by the hope you engender. Grant wisdom and courage to follow your way.
The Third Path: Exclaiming the Divine Creative
This third path creates space to explore how God is working in and through us and all of the universe to renew each day every direction. Each moment offers opportunity to express our God-gifted creativity. We hear messages–ancient and new–that express and affirm the Divine at work and encourage us in our creative collaboration with the Divine.
Scripture Reading Deuteronomy 26:1-11
“When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’
You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.’” ~ New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021)
Reflection The Only Way I Know Rev. Kent Gilbert
Call to Prayer and Offering
Ringing of the Peace Bell
Sung Response #419 Now Thank We All Our God (v. 1 & 2) Nun Danket
1 Now thank we all our God
with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices;
who from our parents’ arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.
2 O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us,
and keep us still in grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills
of this world in the next.
A Chance for Generosity: www.easytithe.com/union
Our gifts help sustain this particular community of caring by sustaining the building, pastor and staff, and all the materials that make our ministry of healing, justice, and teaching available to all in need. In addition, a portion of our contributions flows out to aid those in need via many external ministries.
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. Baskets are placed at the head and foot of each aisle for those who wish to make an in-person donation. Electronic donations can be made very simply and easily at: https//: www.easy tithe.com/union
You can even give by text! Text to 859-448-3403 (Example: Text “$50.00 Offering”)
You can also use US mail! Mail to: 200 Prospect St., Berea, KY 40403
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
Offering Music
Fourth Path: Embodying Compassion and Power
The fourth path will lead us out. We pray for movement within our own hearts to embody peace and passion–compassion and power–on behalf of spreading goodness throughout the week. We not at the mercy of “the way it is,” but can claim our agency to be fully present and fully active in the world into which we now go.
Getting Strong
We are strengthened and renewed by so much of what we hear, see, experience. With that blessing we prepare for the service about to begin in our daily lives after worship. What will you take with you for your sacred work? Let us pray together to heal relationships with all creation as agents of God’s love, Christ’s teaching, and the Holy Spirit’s ever-flowing power.
Community Prayer
Lord of life, thank you! Thank you for everything we can name, and thank you for all the million blessings we have forgotten. You bless us with all creation, and call us into partnership with you in ever-unfolding paths of unceasing evolution and grace. We inhabit your original blessing and seek your ongoing creativity to heal and hold our lives sacred and whole. As we pause to reflect this week on all that sustains us, hear our thanks anew and empower the thanksgiving demonstrated in our living and relating in all your world with all your people. Thanks, Lord. On every path walk, you teach us to dance with gratitude and jubilation. This we pray in Christ’s name: Amen.
Holding Connection
Benediction
Hymn You Shall Go Out with Joy
Postlude
Leave a Reply