WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
PRELUDE
*CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Welcome to this ancient place.
All: House of prayer for many people;
Home to all who come.
Leader: Welcome to this gathering place.
All: Friend and stranger,
saint and sinner in all who gather here.
Leader: Come with hope or hesitation; come with joy or yearning;
all who hunger, all who thirst for life in all its fullness.
All: Generous God and generous Saviour,
touch us through your Spirit.
*HYMN 450 Be Thou My Vision SLANE
CELTIC PRAYER
O God, who gave to your servant Columba the gifts of courage, faith and cheerfulness, and sent people forth from Ireland and Iona to carry the word of your gospel to every creature; grant, we pray, a like spirit to your church, even at this present time.
Further in all things the purpose of our community, that hidden things may be revealed to us, and new ways found to touch the hearts of all.
May we preserve with each other sincere charity and peace, and, if it be your holy will, grant that this place of your abiding be continued still to be a sanctuary and a light. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Leader: Holy God, Maker of all –
All: Lord forgive us.
Leader: Jesus Christ, Servant of the poor –
All: Lord forgive us.
Leader: Holy Spirit, Breath of life –
All: Lord forgive us.
Leader: Let us confess in silence our faults and admit our frailty.
Leader: Before God, with the people of God, we confess to our brokenness; to the ways we wound our lives, to the lives of others, and the life of the world.
All: May God forgive us, Christ renew us, and the Spirit enable us
to grow in love.
Leader: Let us, the children of God, greet each other with signs of peace, peace of Christ to you!
All: Amen.
*HYMN 543 O Christ Surround Me GREEN TYLER
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND LIGHTING OF CANDLES
SCRIPTURE READING John 13:21-30
SERMON Andy Ward
*HYMN Inspired by Love and Anger (insert) SALLEY GARDENS
*CELTIC AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
We believe in God, whose love is the source of all life and the desire of our lives, whose love was given a human face in Jesus of Nazareth, whose love was crucified by the evil that waits to enslave us all and whose love, defeating even death, is our glorious promise of freedom. Therefore, though we are sometimes fearful and full of doubt, in God we trust; and, in the name of Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves, in the service of others, to seek justice and to live in peace, to care for the earth and to share the commonwealth of God’s goodness, to live in freedom of forgiveness and the power of the spirit of love, and the company of the faithful so to be the church, for the glory of God. Amen.
TITHES AND OFFERING Amazing Grace
*DOXOLOGY
Let trumpets sound and voices sing!
Let all on earth their praises bring! Alleluia! Alleluia!
For Christ has conquered sin and death
And given life eternal breath.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to God.
Let us give thanks to God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.
A Prayer of the Iona Community of Scotland:
Generous Creator,
You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time,
want us to wait for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we must go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.
So, thank you…for the waiting time.
You keep us looking.
You, the God of all space,
want us to look in the right and wrong places for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless,
for visions of a better world that will appear among the disappointments of the world we know.
So, thank you…for the looking time.
You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you –
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;
to love without jealousy or design or threat,
and most difficult of all, to love ourselves.
So, thank you…for the loving time.
And in all this you keep us,
through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed and making an impact when we felt useless;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us. Amen.
The prayer concludes by singing The Casa Del Sol Prayer of Jesus.
A copy of this prayer can be found on the seat of your pew.
*HYMN 100 Canticle of the Turning STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN
*CHARGE
POSTLUDE Highland Cathedral Korb/Roever
*Please rise in body or in spirit.
***
We thank those who served in and prepared for worship today:
Andrew Ward, Preacher
Jeff Moles, Director of Music Ministries
Heidi Hall, Liturgist
A special thank you to today’s guest musicians:
Melissa DuPuy
John Mock
Jason Bunn
Bill Verdier