Worship Bulletin – 9/22/19

Worship Bulletin – 9/22/19

McPherson First Church of the Brethren
We invite your active participation in the life of this congregation, as together we continue to grow in grace and seek justice for God’s creation.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Gathering Music – “Indescribable” (Chris Tomlin)

Sharing Time
Creation Care – Kristen Flory Reynolds
…a time of greeting and sharing those things which inform who we are as a community of faith and how God is moving among us. You are invited to welcome visitors, share joys, prayer requests and announcements.

Focusing Music – “Creation Calls” (Brian Doerksen)
I have felt the wind blow, whispering your name.
I have seen your tears fall, when I watch the rain.
Chorus 1: How could I say there is not God when all around creation calls?
A singing bird, a might tree, the vast expanse of open sea.
Gazing at a bird in flight, soaring through the air.
Lying down beneath the stars, I feel your presence there.
Chorus 2: I love to stand at ocean shore and feel the thundering breakers roar;
to walk through golden fields of grain with endless bloom horizons fray.
Listening to a river run, watering the earth;
fragrance of a rose in bloom, a newborn’s cry at birth.
I believe (x5), I believe just like a child (I believe…), I believe…

*Call to Worship
ONE: In the beginning God created.
ALL: With loving kindness, and joyous expectation – God breathed life into all that is.
ONE: Creation was made in the image of God’s goodness.
ALL: God, be with us, move in us and through us so Your loving kindness might be known to all.

*Opening Song – “Indescribable” (Chris Tomlin)

Children’s Time
Following story: Childcare provided for infant thru K-garten in Education Building

Invitation to Give
Giving Music – “Peace Abiding” (G.F. Handel)
Giving Prayer

Prayer Song – “Let There Be Peace on Earth” (Miller/Jackson)

Unison Prayer for Peace
Loving God, you inspire us with love for all persons and concern for the well-being of all creation.
Give us today the strength and courage to transform the compassion of our hearts into acts of peace, mercy and justice.
Help us to renounce all forms of violence and injury to people and the earth.
Give us the courage to resist rape and abuse of our fellow humanity and ecosystems – actions that threaten the life and living of that which You created and pronounced good.
Empower us to live out the caring presence of the merciful and generous persons we claim to be.
Make us channels of your peace, bearers of healing, women and men who hear and respond with swiftness to pleas for justice in our world for ALL creation.
We ask all this in the name of Jesus who came among us to show us the way. AMEN

Worship Choir – “Great Trees” (arr. Peter Amidon)
Slowly, slowly, they return to the small woodland let alone; great trees, outspreading and upright, apostles of the living light. Patient as stars, they build in air, tier after tier a timbered choir, stour beams upholding weightless grace of song, a blessing on this place. They stand in waiting all around, uprisings of their native ground, down-comings of the distant light, they are the advent they await. Receiving sun and giving shade, their life’s a benefaction made, and is a benediction said over the living and the dead. In fall their brightened leaves, released, fly down the wind and we are pleased to walk on radiance, amazed. Oh light come down to earth, be praised!

The text is from the poem “Slowly, slowly they return” from SABBATHS by Wendall Berry. Hallowell, a hospice singing group, sang this for Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai who started the Green Belt Movement, planting millions of trees in Kenya.

Scripture Focus – I John 1-5
The incarnation of the Word of Life – Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness

Message – “All things came into being…” (Jerry Bowen)

*Sending Song – “For Beauty of Meadows” (Farquharson)

Sending Words

*Sending Music – March from the “Occasional Oratoria” (arr. Franklin Ritter)

*Indicates please rise in Body and/or Spirit

WORSHIP PARTICIPANTS
Pastoral Staff – Jerry Bowen, Chris and Kathryn Whitacre
Chancel Decor – Colleen Gustafson & Lara Schoming
Acolytes – Laila Samland & Hannah Wilgers
Sharing Time – Ann Stover
Worship Leader – Kathryn Whitacre
Piano/Organ – Ellen Gilbert
Children’s Time – Jen Pollard
Worship Band – Francis Hendricks, Dan Hoffman, Dawn Hoffman, Jim Hoffman, Dan Lichty, Carol Ward & Dani Wilcock
Screens – Ira Whitacre
Director/Camera – To Be Determined
Sound – Shane Kirchner
Greeters – Bruce and Janell Clary
Ushers – Lela Beam, Jim & Lisa HOffman, Michael Wagner
Head Usher – Glenn Gayer
Balcony Usher – Mike Goering
Childcare Attendant – To Be Determined

Reminder: The bulletin announcements/weekly newsletter are sent to your email address every Friday with “COB Communications” caption in the address line. You may pick up a paper copy from the stand on the sanctuary level or from the literature rack immediately inside the Education Building front door.