Call to Worship & Opening Prayer
God calls us to be and to embrace the process of `becoming`
to find a way to sing the faith that is true to ourselves.
In your love, O God, fill us with your creative energy.
We are a new creation.
Christ calls us to live a courageous life, to be vocal, not silent,
About our God who sings justice and love for all the human family and our Earth.
In your love, O God, fill us with your creative energy.
We will sing a new song for a new earth.
The Holy Spirit affirms us all, each with our unique gift
And brings to us the adventure that faith is meant to be.
In your love, O God, fill us with your creative energy,
Which will lead us to a profound joy.
Giving thanks and praise to you, O God, that you feed us with your nurturing love every day,
We open our hearts and souls for you and for one another as we worship together.
In your love, O God, fill us with your creative energy.
We will carry your love, journeying together.
Prayer of Affirmation and Letting Go
Intro
Last Sunday we read together Psalm 139 in which the Psalmist sings the beautiful, poetic assurance, `God, you have searched me, you know me through and through. It was you who formed my inward parts; you fashioned me in my mother`s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wondrous are your works; that I know very well.` Today's prayer of confession in trusting of affirmation and letting go is written with the hope that this assurance may be truly ours, enabling us to live out the original blessing God has bidden for us all from the very beginning of our life. God is blessing us. We are the bearer of God`s original blessing for all of God`s creation. Let us pray.
People:
O God, you assure us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but we sometimes find difficulty in trusting your assurance. We try to improve ourselves to be better, to be best; we feel hopeless when we cannot meet the world`s impossible standards of beauty and achievement. We undervalue the strength and power we can use to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others; under the guise of humility we deny that we are made in your perfect image.
Leader:
O God, you assure us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that you know us through and through; but we feel alone and alienated – thinking that no one looks at us, no one cares about us. We struggle with our guilty feelings when we do not live up to your grace. We envy, we covet, we are achingly aware of our imperfections and flaws.
People:
O God, you assure us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made; but we see ourselves like sedimentary layers – layer by layer we dig into the depths, finding the darker ground under our scratched surfaces – our sinfulness, our despair, our feelings of helplessness.
Leader:
O God, you assure us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made; and we are so smug about it that we don`t look up and out and around to appreciate how all of your creation is equally fearfully and wonderfully made. Teach us to resist exploitation for our own gain.
Loving God, may we remember that you are always close to us, moving us to find a place of peacefulness and persuading us to let go of burdens and the emotional dregs and sediments which block your spirit from refreshing our souls.
O Spirit of the Living God, present with us now, enter us, body, mind and spirit and touch us with your wholeness, so that we can give praise and thanks to you, our Creator, for who we are, your wondrous work. With your living Spirit, enable us to live fearlessly and with gratitude for every day, every moment which shines with your light and your new, creative energy.
Assurance of God`s restoring love
God`s intention for us is to recover our true, amazing selves. God’s original blessings never fade; God is blessing us now, so that we may become whole and give the same blessings to another and God`s creation as bearers of hope and justice. Being assured of God`s restoring love, receive the assurance that we are restored and reclaimed by God for the passion for life and wholeness we have been created to embrace. You are God`s wondrous work. May you be an agent to help others see themselves likewise.
Prayers of the People
God of creation, thank you for this glorious late summer – the season of creation and fulfilment, the season of labour and early autumn harvest. Thank you for your presence with us at our church’s labour day, yesterday, when we worked, remembered and celebrated the meaning of labour. We also remember that in our creation story, you rested on the seventh day from all the work you had done in creation, and hallowed it. We thank you for the model you set for us – a time for work and a time for rest. We thank you for our gathering after work as we rested and laughed and ate roasted corn and hot dogs together. It was truly a time of communion among saints. We thank you for the wonderful laughter of our children and the flowers of conversation that blossomed from our table. Thank you for your living and holy presence among us all the time.
The Labour Day holiday was two weeks ago, but giving thanks for our church’s labour day yesterday, we would like to use this time to remember and pray for all who labour to provide for themselves, their families and their communities. We pray in particular for those professionals and volunteers who work for the commonwealth and benefit of others, especially for youth, children, and other vulnerable people among us.
Now we hold up the concerns of our church family; we pray for those who are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Loving God, be present with them, be a consoling and healing presence and lead us all into a living hope. May the steadfast certainty of Your indestructible love comfort and accompany us on a gentle path of healing. As we gradually let go of the desire to see our loved one’s smile and touch them and hear their voice, O God, help us to form a new relationship with them. We also hold up our church members and people in our prayers whose lives are now touched by cancer and other chronic illnesses, especially N. Trusting your answering love, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, the carpenter, teacher and healer, who is Lord of all, and we pray in the way Jesus taught us to pray;
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