Link to Zoom Service | Link to Sermon
Order of Worship
Let us be as open vessels that God’s spirit may enter.
The Community Gathers: Experience God’s presence in the
assembly. Please greet one another with joy and welcome new
friends into our community of love.
You are welcome here…come and worship!
Focus: “Humanity, take a good look at yourself. Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world – everything is hidden in you.” Hildegard of Bingen
Gathering Music: Here I am Lord Michelle Currie
Welcome: Rev. Dr. Nancy Parent Bancroft
Responsive Call to Worship:
One: God of Life,
All: you are as near to us as our breath.
One: Touch our eyes,
All: that we may see you in one another.
One: Open our ears,
All: that we may hear your voice in the cries of the oppressed.
One: Enter our hearts,
All: that we may be filled with your love toward all people.
One: Come, O God of life and breath and wholeness.
All: Be with us now. Show us the way to new life and grant us the courage to be people of your Way.
Opening Hymn: Lord You Give the Great Commission #298 verses 1& 4
Invocation :
Creator God, 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 to benefit a world that so desperately needs support, hope, life and joy. We praise you for nudging us into the future you have created for each one of us.
And all God’s people say, Amen.
Lord’s Prayer: (Each week we will explore a version of the prayer Jesus taught. This week we encounter a version translated by Mark Berry, a young pastor of a church in the UK called “safespace.” 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.
Readings: Isaiah 6: 1-8; Matthew 9:35-38 – Caryn Firebaugh
(After the readings you may choose to respond, “Thanks be to God”)
Sermon: Conscience Do Cost Rev. Dr. Nancy Parent Bancroft
Sermon Response: By Name I Have Called You – Carry Landry -Michelle Currie
Musical call to Prayer: Hush now in quiet peace, be still your mind at
ease. The Spirit brings release, so wait upon the Lord. (two times)
Prayers of the People:
Silent Prayers Pastoral Prayer
Closing Hymn: We Are Called #749
Blessing Fitted for This Day By Kimberly Quinn Johnson
We are the ones we have been waiting for.*
We are not perfect, but we are perfectly fitted for this day.
We are not without fault,
but we can be honest to face our past as we chart a new future.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
May we be bold and courageous to chart that new future
May we have faith in a future that is not known
We are the ones we have been waiting for.*
*the words of June Jordan in “Poem for South African Women,” which she presented at the U.N. on August 9, 1978
Response: Thanks be to God
Closing: Go In Peace…
With thanks to Michelle Currie, our Music Director. Thank you to Amy LaBelle our Zoom Host and the many who have helped coordinate the plans to enable us to return to this sacred space.
Pastor’s Contact Info: 207-205-4951
Email: pnorbert1217@gmail.com