"Rules for Just Living"

Call to Worship  (inspired by Ps. 40) Gathered for worship, we rejoice! God lifts us up from mud and mire. We’re here to say and sing and shout our praise! God gives us a new song to sing.  Let your light shine! We can sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing praise ALL the time! God’s love transforms us from the inside out, so let’s declare “PRAISE!” as we receive God’s steadfast love.

Opening Prayer

Holy God, we don’t always wait patiently for you, but today we’re delighted to pray our praise. Inspire us to speak out the glad news of being lifted up by you.  Free us to “say and sing and shout”, for your presence means LIFE to all who trust you.   Walk with us as we remember Jesus’ baptism,  claim once more our own baptism, and speak out in thanksgiving for all you do for us!

Stewardship

Andrew went to tell his brother, Simon, about Jesus.  Simon followed Andrew back to this Messiah, and then received Jesus’ words, “you are to be called ‘Peter’”.  That is written as THE moment when Peter became a follower, who gave the rest of his life to follow this Messiah.

Take a minute now to think of your own time of claiming Jesus as the Christ.  Were you born into the faith?  Carried to church as an infant?  Baptized as a young person?  How has your faith impacted your life?

As you think back, call to mind your own sense of energy, excitement, expectation.  Did you declare, “I believe Jesus is the Christ, and accept him as Lord of my life!”

As we remember, let’s re-claim that confident faith. Join me in responding with gratitude, sharing our gifts, our tithes and our offerings.  Let these symbols renew in you, and in me, our desire to be disciples of Jesus, the Christ.

Special Presentation

On January 16, 1920 , at the campus of Howard University, five women came together to form an organization based on the principles of Scholarship, Service, Sisterhood, and Finer Womanhood.

It’s honor and pleasure to introduce

(Kappa Sigma Zeta Chapter) of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. and(ETA Psi Sigma Chapter) Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc. who just celebrated 109 years January 9th.

Founder’s day is coming! Excitement is in the air! January 16, 2023 Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. will be celebrating 103 years.

I will ask at this time for Basileus/chapter President Queenie Drake of the Kappa Sigma Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. to come forward to make her Special Presentation.

Prayer

God of Isaiah, you are our God, too.

Help us joyfully claim our role as your beloved servants, knowing that you provide all that we need to do our work. You walked with us before we were even born, and you continue to hold us by the hand each and every day of our lives. We pray with the confidence of those who have been filled with your light. We pray with the assurance of those who have been called into fellowship with your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Exodus 23:1-12 New International Version Laws of Justice and Mercy 23 “Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness. 2 “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit. 4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it. 6 “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. 8 “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent. 9 “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt. Sabbath Laws 10 “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. 12 “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.

Benediction (Isaiah 49, 1 Corinthians 1)

Go in the love of the One who strengthens us for the work to which we are called. Go in the fellowship of Jesus Christ, who claims us as sisters and brothers. Go in the community of the Holy Spirit, who binds us together with all the saints. Go with grace to shine God’s love into all the world.Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.