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Worship Order for
Sunday
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Call to
Worship
One: We come together because we are connected to God
through Christ.
Adults: We are each different.
Youth: We are each alike.
Leader: We are all seeking God’s warm embrace through
forgiveness and grace.
Men: We ask for understanding.
Women: We ask to be understood.
Leader: As we reaffirm our commitment to God, We acknowledge
our connection with each other.
All: We are surrendered to God, transformed in Christ,
and empowered by the Spirit to bring God’s reconciliation to the
world.
by Linda
R. Lambert, pastor
Thurmont, MD Church of the Brethren
Church of the Brethren Living Word Bulletin
Anchor/Wallace, Sleepy Eye MN 56085, "The Living Word
Series"
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Opening
Prayer
How great is your name, O Lord
of all! As we come together to worship you, we take the crown
off our own heads and offer it to you. If truth be told, we’re
not all that great at running things. It's amazing what happens,
however, when we get off our thrones and allow you to be God.
Help us to put our lives into perspective.
Prostrate angels, sacred
throngs, every kindred, every tribe … we have a hard time
imagining this bigger picture, O Lord of all. Begin, as you
often do, with the little things that we can see.
Like our little ones. We have heard, “unless you change and
become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”
(Matthew 18:3). Is it
possible to make such a shift, God? Forgive our struggle to
reorient ourselves to your new world order, where the last
become first and vice versa, where one lost sheep matters more
than ninety-nine others, where two or three gathered in your
name are blessed with the humbling, listening, transforming
power of your presence.
“Let the children come to me,” you say, O Lord of all.
Well, here we are. Teach us. Amen.
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For
Children
"All that I have"
With an offering plate in hand, our resident children's
storytelling, Ed, will share from the heart with our little ones
about what we give to God.
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Returning
our Tithes and Offerings
While we strive to "put away childish things,' as the apostle
Paul once wrote, we still have much to learn on Jesus’ lap. That's
why even big people go to Sunday School. Just now, it's time to put
into practice what some of us older ones have learned about giving
and receiving. While we pass the plates and return our offering,
however, let’s listen to what the author of this quarter’s adult
School School curriculum has to say about growing closer to God.
Let's pay attention to what the Lord may have to share with through
this offering time. Ushers?
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Commissioning our Sunday School
Today begins a whole new year
of Sunday School. You are invited to participate in it. Perhaps
we should come up with a different name for this learning and
growing time. The title dates back to the beginnings of a
movement in the 1800’s when going to school was something brand
new for people in our country, and having a “Sunday School” was
a fresh experience. To us, it has perhaps become too “old hat,”
something we do because our parents make us now, or made us once
upon a time. I’d encourage you to put on a different hat.
Imagine the excitement of a child for whom this experience is
brand new. Can you enter into it with this kind of refreshing
outlook? Don’t come with an “attitude,” whether it be “we have
to do it this way or it isn’t Sunday School,” or “I’m tired of
school.” I encourage you to imagine that Jesus is with you when
you get together later on. How might that change the experience?
Our younger classes will use
the curriculum they have been using, “Gather Round.” The youth
and adult classes, however, are going to try something different
for the next 3 months. We’ll focus on the spiritual discipline
called “community.” Don’t let that word “discipline,” however,
immediately turn you off. Remember what we just heard the author
of the material say – that spiritual disciplines are “little
practices, little exercises, little things (we) do on a regular
basis to connect with God.” When it comes to the discipline
called “community,” we discover as we truly connect with one
another, we also connect with God. But it’s not easy. Somehow it
needs to involve scripture, otherwise we’re just playing with
our own words and not connecting with the source of our
strength, the One who makes real community happen.
I invite you to do more than just study the Bible with your
intellect. I encourage you to do more than talk about your
troubles. Again, when you get together later on this morning,
imagine that Jesus is with you. Because he will be! That’s a
promise. Are you game? Good. You are “commissioned” to
spiritually grow.
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Pastoral Prayer
written closer to the time (if not at the
moment)
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Tercentennial Minute
Hat Sunday
The Snake Spring women grab the bull by the horns
Sometimes when we change the
way we do things, we change the past to match the present. For
instance, after nineteenth century Brethren became actively
involved in the Temperance Movement there were those who
suggested that Brethren had always abstained from alcohol. What
the Brethren had practiced was moderation, though, not
abstention.
The Brethren
developed the plain garb in the 19th century as part of their
practice of nonconformity. However, it's not clear that the 18th
century practiced any uniformity, although it is believed they
dressed more simply than their contemporaries.
What is
clear is that by the 19th century some Brethren were chafing
under their collars and bonnets, figuratively if not literally.
Some of the young men wanted to wear bow ties. And the women –
many wanted to wear hats.
According to
Carl Bowman, in his book Brethren Society, Eastern
Brethren were especially opposed to this and were quick to point
out any failure to conform to the nonconformity. On the other
hand, they dismissed any criticism of a decision to grow tobacco
as meddling in their personal business.
The Snake
Spring Valley congregation, located in the Middle Pennsylvania
district, solved the garb issue with solidarity. According to
the story, early in the twentieth century a group of the women
decided they’d sink or swim together. As nonagenarian Gladys
Pepple, a member of the congregation, recalled, the women of the
church arranged ahead of time for one Sunday when they would all
wear hats. "Several of them got together," she said, even
though, "they were half afraid to go in church. They got
together and went in together. If one got in trouble they all
would." It was evidently a success. A photograph from 1921 shows
the women of the Sunday School posing for the picture. They are
all wearing hats. There is not one bonnet or prayer covering
among them.
The irony,
Gladys Pepple noted, is that nowadays no one wears hats to
church.
And that’s the Tercentennial Minute for
Sunday, September 7
by Frank Ramirez, pastor of the Everett, PA
Church of the Brethren
posted by permission
The Everett church
graciously makes available these weekly vignettes from Brethren
history
to all who are interested during this
300th
anniversary year of our denomination.
Frank will be the guest preacher for our Homecoming on October
26, 2008
(this is our congregation's 100th anniversary year)
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Benediction
We are
forgiven. We are forgiving. We are loosed from our fears,
prejudice, and resentments. We are bound together by the cords of
God’s love, mercy, and grace. What God has joined together, let us
hold in sacred trust.
by Linda R. Lambert, pastor
Thurmont, MD Church of the Brethren
Church of the Brethren Living Word Bulletin
Anchor/Wallace, Sleepy Eye MN 56085, "The Living Word
Series"
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(para traducir a español, presione la bandera de España)
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