May 28, 2017

For Meditation and Reflection:

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
– Maya Angelou

Welcome and Announcements

Opening Prayer (in unison): Come, O Creator, O Immensity of love, O Eternity of mercy. Come, and be with us and in us and beside us and over us. Be as hands upon us, and fashion us for shining. Be as warmth within us, and fire us for caring. Be as strength beside us, and shape our lives for healing. Abide in our prayers, the spoken and the unspoken; and make your Word come true in our flesh; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

Responsive Call to Worship
Leader: Beautiful are the works of God!
People: Beautiful also are the skins of God’s people!
Leader: Beautiful is the mind of God!
People: Beautiful also are the hopes of God’s people!
Leader: Beautiful is the heart of God!
People: Beautiful also are the souls of God’s people!
Leader: God made the heavens and the earth!
People: To God be the glory for the things God has done!

Opening Hymn: We Gather Together – #421

Today’s Scripture Readings: John 17: 1-11

Sermon by Rev. Michael Lyle – “Listening In”

Responsive Hymn: O, Savior, Let Me Walk With You – #503

The Offerings and Offertory Music
The Doxology – #780

A Litany of Thanksgiving
Leader: Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. Allow your spirit to fill our very being.
People: We remember our brothers and sisters who are worshipping elsewhere throughout the world. Inspire each of us to work more faithfully for justice and the dignity of life everywhere.
Leader: Raise our vision above the barriers of color, culture and creed that separate us. Give us wisdom as we deal with one another. Help us to recognize and respect different ways, rather than to judge..
All: In the Spirit of Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve, we now must walk in the world. We must reach out our hands with help, and open our hearts in love. Awake in us the desire to seek your way of serving you in the world. Amen.

Joys and Concerns

Prayers of the Pastor and the People

Lord’s Prayer (Traditional, with “debts”)

Closing Hymn: Help Us Accept Each Other – #388

Prayer of Benediction: Leader: May the God who shakes heaven and earth,
People: Whom death could not contain;
Who lives to disturb and help us;
Leader: Bless you with power to go forth
And proclaim the gospel. Amen.

Sharing the Peace as we go…….And we hope you can join us for post-worship coffee and conversation in Fellowship Hall.

Rev. Lyle is happy to stay following the service to discuss any questions, concerns or thoughts you may have about his sermon.

Thought for the Day/Week

“The Bright Field” by R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Announcements:

This Sunday, May 28th
Our Worship Leader is the Rev. Michael Lyle

Sunday, June 4th
Our Worship Leader will be the Rev. Samantha Tuttle.

The monthly Council meeting will be held in Fellowship Hall beginning at 9:30.

Sunday, June 11th
Our Worship Leader will be David Plume.

Sunday, June 18th
Our Worship Leader will be Rev. Robert Close, a longtime friend of St. James.
We will be particularly celebrating our fathers and our graduates on this Sunday.

Sunday, June 25th
Our Worship Leader will be the Rev. Samantha Tuttle.

Our annual congregational meeting will be held at about 12:15, after our post-worship fellowship.

Our Statement of Faith

We gather in worship as an inclusive community, an open & affirming community of faith that transcends any distinctions based on gender, sexual orientation, nationality, race, or religion.

Our formal worship flows into a living worship of love and support for one another as we pursue ways to reflect God’s reign of mercy, justice, and peace in our community and throughout the world…

….along with a continuing search for ways to celebrate the goodness of life together ….and always reaching out to draw others, with total inclusiveness, into this communal experience.