Worship
Service for October 11, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!
P: Sing to the glory of God’s name.
L: All of creation worships, singing praise
to God.
P: Sing to the glory of God’s name.
L: Let us give glory to God.
Opening Hymn – Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee #464/90
Prayer of Confession
Holy God,
when we are in need, we cry out for Your mercy and healing. Yet, we confess that too often, we are
confident in our own strength. We take
the blessings to which we feel entitled, and continue on our way, rather than
returning to You in worship and praise.
Jesus, have mercy on us! It is
easy to take for granted the ease of life we so often experience, while failing
to question why others are pushed to the margins and excluded. It is tempting to take pride in our health
and strength rather than confronting ableism in all its forms. Jesus, have mercy on us! Help us to grow in compassion for all
people. Redirect our paths so that we
return to You, offering our praise and gratitude, now and always. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: The saying is sure: If we have died with
Christ, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with
him. We are clothed with the
righteousness of Christ.
P: By God’s mercy, our sins are
forgiven. Thanks be to God.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Compassionate God, You are God of all creation. Only You know the expanse of the cosmos and
every small and hidden corner of creation.
You have created us in love, and we join all of creation in singing to
the glory of Your name.
We give thanks for Your generous provisions. Thank You for the basic elements that sustain
life, and the joy and beauty that enrich it.
We give thanks for Your works of healing. While we live in a world still marked by pain
and suffering, we acknowledge gifts of health and strength. For prayers answered, bodies healed,
relationships restored, and hope that displaces despair, we give You thanks.
We give thanks for Your diverse creation. While we often get mired in our own
particular lives, Your care and concern cross all boundaries and borders. We are grateful for all of the different
people in the world, each created in and reflecting Your image. May we always return to You in gratitude and
praise.
We pray for the many needs in our world. We pray for those living in war zones, and
all who have been displaced by violence, disaster, and trauma. Bring Your peace and healing to the nations,
and make us all ready to receive and support siblings in need. Help us to see our shared humanity which is
greater than the divisions we create and uphold.
We pray for your most vulnerable children, especially those who are
pushed to the margins, neglected, and worse.
It can be easy to keep them out of sight and out of mind, to hold them
at arm’s length as the perpetual “other,’ or to look at their situations and
simply give thanks they are not our own.
We ask for miracles that change the difficult and deadly circumstances
so many face, and that you ignite our own compassion. Give us wisdom to know how to respond and the
courage to act.
We pray for all who are hurting, in body, mind or spirit. Jesus, have mercy and heal what is broken. We
pray for broken bodies, broken hearts, broken relationships, and broken spirits. Creator of all, re-create this world, so we
can live in shalom together.
We offer the prayer of our hearts for those we’ve named aloud…
We offer the prayer of our hearts in this time of silence…
All of these we offer to you, including those that are known only to
you in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray 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. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Ye
Servants of God #477/38
Sacrament of Baptism
Scripture Reading(s):
Psalm
23
Philippians
4:1-9
Sermon Stand Firm in the Lord
(based on Philippians
4:1-9)
Many of you know that I use Social
Media a fair amount, less so recently, mostly because I have fewer moments of
free time to do so. But I’m still part
of many on-line discussion groups. In nearly
all of the groups that I belong to and when I post on Social Media, everyone
knows me as “the minister”. Because of
that, I get a lot of questions and feedback when it comes to religion and faith
- even in unrelated topics. Most of the
questions I get (which are more often in the form of comments) are about how
Christianity (and religion in general) is no longer relevant; how God is a
man-made construct to make us adhere to a set of values, used by the powerful
to control the masses. That idea
actually goes back to David Hume, an early 18th Century philosopher
and religious critic who joined the great exodus of those who questioned
religious faith and became more of a secular humanist which was a movement that
developed later out of the rational enlightenment in the late 18th
and early 19th Centuries.
Of course, I’m quick
to defend my faith, acknowledging some of the points that people outside of
Christianity and institutional faith beliefs make, by using rational arguments
to debunk many of their attacks. Some
people on these threads, (for those of you who don’t know that term – a thread
is a term used for following a specific comment in an on-line dialogue); so,
some people of faith on the thread often take offense at the comments or
questions and can get very emotional and attack back. That never helps in those situations and
often simply leads the original poster to say, “see….you religious folk are
overly emotional and can’t have a serious dialogue.” I usually try to point out that their post
about Christianity being irrational, quackery, a mere scam on society can be
trigger words as an attack. So, when
someone’s faith is called into question using such words, it can lead to people
doing the very same in response – feeling personally attacked. I try very hard to get beyond all those kinds
of words and have a rational dialogue with people.
Sometimes,
unfortunately, I think they often just want to pick a fight and see who’ll take
the bait. And someone inevitably
does. They’ll fly off the handle, say
something really unhelpful and often to the very point of the religious
critic’s skepticism. And then the poster
feels smugly justified in their belief that ALL religious people are simply
nutcases.
Having responded to so
many of these comments/questions so many times (seriously, it is constant) I
often wonder why I bother. Will they
start going to church because of my rational argument for God? Will I stop believing because they made a really
good point about God not being real? As
far as I know, that has never happened.
And obviously, that hasn’t happened from my standpoint, either. So, why do I do it? Why do I even bother? I don’t know those people, they aren’t
friends of mine that I see on a regular basis, they are simply names on a
social board, so why?
Is there a growing
movement of secular humanism in our time and has the tide turned away from the
church? Is the church no longer
relevant? I’ve been a pastor for nearly
40 years at a total of 7 churches. I
have watched, as you have, over those 40 years churches dwindle in size with
more and more empty pews. Paul says in
Philippians 4:1 – “Stand firm in the Lord”.
Recently, I’ve come
across several posts that maybe hit the target for why there is a rational
argument for God or Supreme Being. The
first comes from a comment made by astronaut, Ron Garan, who came home after
spending 178 days aboard the International Space Station.
“From orbit, Earth
doesn’t look like a collection of countries, borders, or competing
interests. It appears as a single,
radiant blue sphere suspended in darkness.
No lines divide continents. No
flags mark territory. From 250 miles
above the surface, every human conflict suddenly looks small – and every human
connection looks unavoidable. He
described watching lightning storms crackle across entire continents, auroras
ripple like living curtains over the poles, and city lights glowing softly
against the planet’s night side. What
struck him most wasn’t Earth’s power – but rather its fragility. The atmosphere protecting all life appeared
as a paper-thin blue halo, barely visible, yet responsible for everything that
breathes, grows, and survives. Humanity
shares a single, closed system. There
are no back-ups. There is no escape
route. There’s no second home for us to
go to.”
And none of it was by
our own design, something that we built, or a random act of chaos becoming
ordered. It is that very fragility that
makes you wonder and necessarily come to the conclusion that something greater
holds it together by such ordered precision.
Another recent post
said, in case you forgot today, you are living in a universe:
Where diamonds rain
down on Neptune and golden asteroids float through the solar system.
Where every snowflake
is unique. There aren’t two that are the
same.
Where whales sing
complicated, beautiful songs that travel across entire ocean basins, echoing
through thousands of miles of deep, dark blue water just to speak to one
another.
Where dolphins give
each other unique names, creating distinct signature whistles when they are
young so they can call out to their friends and family across the waves.
Where sea otters pick
a favorite stone when they are young, keeping it for their entire lives in a
loose flap of skin under their forelegs—a tiny, perfect fur pocket—using it to
crack open shellfish and showing it off to their partners and friends.
Where elephants mourn
their dead, gently touching the bones of their ancestors with their trunks in
quiet, generational grief.
Where crows remember
human faces, holding grudges against those who wrong them, but passing down
stories to their children about the humans who leave them gifts of shiny keys
and glass beads.
Where trees talk to
one another through vast, hidden underground mycelial networks, sharing
nutrients with struggling saplings and warning their neighbors when a predator
is near.
Where horses can read
human emotions.
Where lightning
creates glass in sand.
Where the ocean can
glow in the dark.
Where stars you see in
the night sky might not exist any longer.
We live in a world,
within a universe, that is so much older, softer, and more magical than the
systems we have built on top of it.
Order created out of chaos, not created by us or by some impossible
mistake, but by a supreme being that holds it all in the palm of its hand, who
knows the number of hairs on your head, and every sparrow that falls to the
ground.
This building was
built for us to worship that God. Those
believers who lived before us, built this place for that purpose. That is why we come to church – that is the
purpose of Sunday morning worship. For
us to glorify God. Sometimes, people on
the outside of these walls, only see the edifice. They only see the activity on Sunday mornings
when we come here to worship.
But that is not necessarily
the purpose of Church. What is the
purpose of church? What is it that I
defend so vehemently, comment after comment in threads on social media? It’s not the edifice. It’s not the building. It’s not even Sunday morning worship. What is the purpose of the Church?
Each person’s highest
purpose is to glorify God as we stand in abject wander of its creation. We can do that inside a building or outside
of it. But collectively, when we are all
together, what is the purpose of the Church?
I will defend the
gospel until my dying days because of these passages in Philippians. This is the purpose of the church. Paul says it and urges the members of the
church in Philippi to be of the same mind.
“Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus. Finally beloved, whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is
anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have
learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be
with you.”
This is the purpose of
the church. I don’t care if we get down
to two people in the pews in the last church on the planet, this will be what
we do. This will be the purpose of the
church until its last breath.
We will be
gentle. Our hallmark will be one of
gentleness towards the outside world. It
will be how we are known. God will
soften our edges and will wear down our sharpness. We will approach the world with tender hearts
and outstretched arms. Like Lot and his
family ensconced in a city of sinfulness, like Noah and his children surrounded
by nothing but water, even if we are the last believers on earth, we will not
worry, for we know that God has all things under His protection, held in the
palm of His hand, but will beseech the Lord in prayer with thanksgiving – even
if it takes a long time to find something to be thankful for – we will let our
requests be known to God.
Finally, we will think
only about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever
is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, and whatever is
excellent in this world. Actions are a
result of thinking and if we keep our minds focused on these things, our
actions will follow. And we’ll keep
doing the things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable,
and excellent for the benefit of the world.
That is the purpose of
the church. And I will defend those
principles comment after comment, question after question until the faithful
rise up again, as they have century after century. That is why we are here – that is our
purpose. To stand firm in the faith, to
glorify God as individuals, and to unite as one body the Church, to proclaim in
word and in deed the love, peace, and hope of the gospel message.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory -
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
Holy
and generous God, use the gifts we bring for healing and reconciliation in the
world, to the glory of your name. AMEN
Closing Hymn – The Church’s One Foundation #444/401
Benediction
Remember God created whales to sing, otters to own a special
pebble kept in a fur pocket, trees to communicate with one another, and diamonds
that rain down on Neptune. That same God
created you – intricately knit in your mother’s womb, known before the
foundation of the world. Stand firm in
the faith and today, see that same miracle in the face of each person you
meet. Go in peace. AMEN.
Postlude
No comments:
Post a Comment