Monday, October 19, 2015

For October 25, 2015 (Service using parts of the story of Ruth)

CALL TO WORSHIP
God calls us to gather as sisters and brother in faith and life.
We gather with the members of our family.
God calls us together to be prepared to be sent out
we gather that we would be refreshed as servants of God.
As we gather together we turn to our friends and neighbours and exchange words and signs of Christ's Peace...

PRAYER FOR AND ASSURANCE OF GRACE
God you call us to name as family the people whose lives we share.
Help us to commit ourselves to care for them, and to allow them to care for us.
We know that sometimes our families, the ones we are born into and the ones we choose, fail us.
And we know that we sometimes fail them.
And so help us move beyond the failings to find the way where we can all flourish,
forgiving, giving another chance, taking the risks of love and commitment.
God of grace, God who calls us beloved children, God who challenges us to see brothers and sisters wherever we look,
give us the grace, the courage, the ability, to see beyond our old boundaries as we share the love you have shared with us.
And when our vision is limited, when we ask “who is my brother?”
open our hearts and souls to the breadth we find in Christ Jesus.
As part of the family you have chosen,
help us God to live in grace, in love, and in mutual support, committed to each other. Amen.

Monday, October 5, 2015

For October 11, 2015 -- Thanksgiving Sunday, The call of Moses

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
O God we call...
throughout the ages people have called out in their times of crisis.
O God we call...
those under the thumb of oppression, those struggling under the weight of life.
O God we call...
seeking to know that we are heard, seeking relief in our hardship.
From deep inside we yearn for you.
We ask you to break in to the world, to set things right.
We are not alone...
we trust that you hear the cries of your people.
We are not alone...
with thanksgiving we celebrate your constant presence, your assurance that the arc of the universe continuously bends toward justice.
We are not alone...
God of life, we thank you for the gifts you share with us, we thank you for changing the world so that all your children might flourish.
And so in hope and thanksgiving we echo the old prayer:
That all will be well, all manner of thing be well. Someday. Amen.

COMMISSIONING:
God hears.
And God calls us to hear too.
God acts.
And challenges us to act as agents of God.
We go out into the world,
looking for the “burning bush”, looking for those places where God invites us into the work of liberation.
And we go secure in the promise that we are not alone. God is with us.
Thanks be to God. Amen