Worship leading March 6th

Pastoral Welcome

welcome online and in-person

P.A. is here

We are in Lent

A season of reflection and contemplation to see what things stay and what thing we can let go of in our spiritual life

When we are making those decisions about this season of Lent we look towards Jesus

Who showed us a very different type of power the power of the cross

We worship that Christ the Christ of the Cross this morning

I invite you to rise as you are able...

Call to Worship

O Wise God, you have come to us in the form of a vulnerable child;

You teach us that the last are first and the first, last;

You lead us on a Way to new life that leads through death.

Truly your wisdom is different than ours!

Meet us in this place and teach us your foolish wisdom and your vulnerable power.

Give us joy to receive it fully and courage to live it foolishly.

Come let us worship Jesus Christ, our Wisdom and Word!

Pastoral Prayer

God of mystery,

we journey with Jesus during this Lenten season

with the certain hope that you will recreate our world

so that all people will live in peace and justice.

Call us out of the wilderness of apathy

and help us to reach out to those who do not know hope or love.

Hear the longings of our hearts

and the cries of those who yearn to live in peace and justice. as we fix our eyes on your cross

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Oh God we remembered that you suffered and that you experience the sin and the pain and the laments of our world. God we cry out to you knowing that there is much that we are powerless over...

We are powerless over...

- Military conflicts happening around our world

- Divisions occuring within our church

- Often we are even powerless over our own sin struggles

God we remember in our powerlessness that you know our grief and that you are not an absent God but that you have felt our pain.

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Oh Christ we recognize that in the midst of our powerlessness that your power is working in our lives even before we have the vocabulary to describe it.

I give thanks for your grace that reaches out even when we turn away from it.

God thank you for the joy that it is to be a church.

Thank you for the many blessings that you give each of us uniquely

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

We know that there are those among us here today that are bearing their own crosses even just entering into this worship space.

Some our crosses have names like:

grief

illness

loss

cancer

loneliness

isolation

mental health concerns

physical health concerns

Lord God in the midst of the crosses that we bear help us to see the narrative of Resurrection that you are building in our midst, but more importantly help us to learn to cry out to you from right where we are now

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

We know Lord God that your kingdom is upside down from ours. That first will be last and the last will be first. We know that when the table looks full you call us to say “Come on there is room.” So Lord God may we live into your upside down Kingdom. If it be you will Lord God comfort the afflicted among us and afflict the comfortable among us.

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Lastly we know that we so often neglect to lift our own souls up to you Lord God. We pray that throughout these 40 days that we would hear your still small voice speaking to us, and that we would be faithful in our response. We lift up the joys and concerns of our own heart in this moment of silent worship.

Lord in your Mercy; Hear Our Prayer

Lord, help us walk faithfully in the path of our Lord Jesus Christ - he who taught us to pray

together as one family, saying.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

Announcements

Listening Session next week

After service

In the basement

It will be specifically for those that are in the room

WCR

New Mission of the month

RAYS Program at IMPACT

food distribution center, but they also help individuals and families with a number of other needs.

The RAYS program allocates funding for summer youth programming for families that might not have access to summer youth programming.

Our church has made the RAYS program the mission of the month this month so you can support that mission by making a note of your offering

Celebration

Kids Respond Project

Our Sermon series small group that meets after this participated as well!

Offertory Announcement

Communion

Pastor Lewis:

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Pastor Angie:

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Pastor Lewis:

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.

Pastor Angie:

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

Pastor Lewis:

When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

(Pastor speaks.) And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pastor Angie:

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. Amen.

Invitation to partake - pastor Lewis

Prayer after communion - Pastor Angie