St. Columba's Anglican United Church St. Columba's Anglican United Church
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St. Columba's Sunday Service
Robert Fyles
Robert Fyles
Sunday, November 22, 2020
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Order of Service and Hymns
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Mission Statement
As followers of Jesus Christ, our church is a community called to love, honour, worship, and serve God. We invite others to share our Christian journey as we grow in faith and engage in ministry in our town and mission in our world.
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Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Mark 11.9, 10

Welcome and Announcements

Land Acknowledgment

God’s People Gather……

Call to Worship

Sing praises to God, you faithful, give thanks to God’s holy name!
Weeping may linger for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
God turns our weeping to dancing and clothes us in gladness.
May we praise God & not be silent! Thanks to you O God, forever! Amen

Hymn: VU 213 Rejoice the Lord Is King

Rejoice the Lord is King!
Your risen Lord adore!
Rejoice, give thanks and sing
and triumph evermore.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice:
rejoice; again I say, rejoice.

Jesus the Saviour reigns,
the God of truth and love;
when he had purged our sins,
he took his seat above.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice:
rejoice; again I say, rejoice.

God's kingdom cannot fail;
Christ rules o'er earth and heaven;
the keys of death and hell
are to our Jesus given.
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice:
rejoice; again I say, rejoice.

Rejoice in glorious hope,
for Christ, the judge, shall come
to glorify the saints
for their eternal home.
We soon shall hear the archangel's voice;
the trump of God shall sound, rejoice!

Words: Charles Wesley 1746, alt. Music: John Darwall 1770. Words and mMusic: Public domain.

Prayer of Approach

Story Time

To Hear God’s Word
Hebrew Scripture: Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24
Psalm: Psalm 100
Epistle: Ephesians 1:15-23

The Gospel: Matthew 25: 31-46

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.
Thanks be to God.

Sermon

To Respond in Prayer and Action……

A New Creed
We are not alone, we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.

Prayer of Confession

Gracious God, as people called to be your presence in the world, we search our hearts, and ask your forgiveness:
For opportunities not taken, for care not given,
forgive us we pray
For sorrow not shared, for joy not celebrated,
forgive us we pray
For love not offered, forgiveness not extended,
forgive us we pray
For those failings we cannot speak aloud,
forgive us we pray
Gracious God we seek your healing grace, and ask forgiveness in the name of Jesus. Amen
(Silence follows)

Words of Assurance

The Peace
The peace of Christ be with you all.
And also with you.

The Offering

Hymn: VU 210 You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd

You, Lord, are both lamb and shepherd.
You, Lord, are both prince and slave.
You, peacemaker and sword bringer
of the way you took and gave.
You the everlasting instant,
you, whom we both scorn and crave.

Clothed in light upon the mountain,
stripped of might upon the cross,
shining in eternal glory,
beggared by a soldier’s toss.
You, the everlasting instant,
you who are both gift and cost.

You, who walk each day beside us,
sit in power at God’s side.
You, who preach a way that’s narrow,
have a love that reaches wide.
You the everlasting instant;
you, who are our pilgrim guide.

Worthy is our earthly Jesus!
Worthy is our cosmic Christ!
Worthy your defeat and victory.
Worthy still your peace and strife
You the everlasting instant;
you, who are our death and life.

Words: Sylvia Dunstan 1984. Music: John Van Maanen 1984. alt. music: Henry Percell ca. 1682 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Words copyright © 1991 GIA Publications Inc. Music: © 1984 John R. Van Maanen. All rights reserved. OneLicense.net License #A-720359 (words with alt. tune #91517).

VU 541 The Doxology 
We give you but your own,
what e’er the gift may be;
all that we have is yours alone,
We give it gratefully.

Copyright public domain. Words: William Walsham How, 1858; Music: Johann Balthasar König, 1738; adapted William Henry Havergal, 1847

Offertory Prayer

Prayers of the People
In our Shared Ministry Church Cycles of prayer, we pray for…
Anna, our bishop-elect. S. George the Martyr, Cadboro Bay and the Revs.- Elizabeth Barnard & Don Walls...

Let us pray together now for the universal church and the world.
Christ our hope at this critical time lead us into facing our denial. As the church, as a culture wake us up to an awareness of the responsibility and opportunities we now have.
We honour the wisdom gained by centuries of spiritual and artistic endeavour through the experience of our mystics and the lives and deaths of all our saints.
We pray for an open church that celebrates the coming together of all faith and wisdom traditions, the sciences and the arts.
We pray for a new time of hope, mystery and promise as we bring all these riches to bear on our global crisis.
God the Mother and Father of all creation we pray that a new way of living emerges out of the present reductionist system that’s robbed the world of its spirit and turned human beings into objects and nature into a machine.
We pray for a culture that allows us to live in harmony with all creation and stops crippling the earth’s diversity. We pray that your Spirit of passionate life that raised Christ from the dead bursts now into all people in our earth community.
Creator God we pray that we will wake up to a new consciousness.

(from The Planetary Mass by the Nine O Clock Service)

IS THAT YOU? by Andrew King

The jittering snow flakes chase one another
in flight from the knuckles of wind

that sway the abandoned branches of trees
in their inaudible dirge of loss

and scatter the dust that lines the street
where blank windows stare at the gray.

A fragment of newspaper rolls by, revealing and hiding
its jumble of pain under clouds the colour of bruises.

And the torn creation seems to live in the lines
of the face of this solitary woman,

old coat buttoned high and frayed hat pulled hard
on a forehead furrowed with years,

eyelids pinched from the chill of the air
as she shifts, from one hand to the other,

the heavy weight of two bags that might
carry all that she cares about today.

See how carefully she opens her thin wallet
at the counter of the McDonald’s.

How each coin is cradled like a departing child
by wrinkled and shaking fingers.

How, when she lifts her face to yours and you
smile, and she smiles in return of your greeting

something crosses the space between you
like a bridge spanning unseen waters

and across that bridge moves a gentle light,
a glow of kindness, of friendship, of grace.

Is that you in those eyes, O Beloved Redeemer,
in that smile, in that bridge, in that light?

Is that you in the lines on all our weathered faces,
in all our hands that count out life’s coins?

Grant me grace to see you looking back at me
with the love you have for all creation,

to see you, O King, in all of your glory,
beneath the folds of each old hat, worn coat.

Jesus in Disguise by John van de Laar

It’s a tough thing for us to learn, Jesus,
how you hide in the most unlikely places;
how you beckon us into life and compassion
by disguising yourself in broken humanity.

But, when our eyes are opened,
we discover that we are never far from your heart,
from your kingdom. And so we ask you to show yourself to us again,
and lead us into prayerful action;

Help us to share your grief when lives are needlessly lost
simply because they have no money for food or shelter,
because they have no access to medicine and care,
because they have no choice but to live
where war and violence constantly threaten;

Help us to feel your offense when the least are exploited
by the lust of those who are physically stronger,
by the greed of those who are financially richer,
by the disregard of those who are politically more powerful.

Help us to know your pain when what you have created is destroyed
by the carelessness of expediency,
by the short-sightedness of progress at all costs,
by the sense of entitlement of proud humanity.

Teach us to welcome you, Jesus,
by welcoming those in whom your image is hidden,
and by working, in our small worlds,
to make visible your kingdom where all are welcomed.
Amen.

Lord’s Prayer

Collect

Hymn: VU 266 Amazing Grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
this word my hope secures;
God will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun,
we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
than when we’d first begun.

Words: John Henry Newton, 1779; Music: from Virginia Harmony, 1831. Copyright: Public Domain (English)

Benediction

Threefold Amen

Announcements:
Reprinted and podcast with permission under ONE LICENSE #A-720359. All rights reserved.

  • All in-person worship and activities at St. Columba have been suspended by provincial health order until at least December 7.
  • Bible Study Tuesday at 5:15 PM on Zoom (contact Sheila or Rev. Elaine to be invited)
  • Celtic Pray Thursday at 2:00 PM on Zoom (contact Rev. Elaine) You can participate on Zoom, or if you just wish the weekly prayers and readings in print but not participate on Zoom she can email you the document.
  • Mission Focus is the Gazette Christmas Hamper Fund
  • You can contact Rev. Elaine by email at incumbent@stcolumbaporthardy.ca or phone her at the church office. If you leave a message, she will reply as soon as possible.
  • A bag lunch will be available on Sunday morning at 11 AM for those who need a meal. Gloria will be available at the church to give you the lunch.

Gila’kasla