Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Long Green & Kanes Rds., near Glen Arm, Md.
April 18, 2010
Worship 10:00 am              Sunday School 11:10am

The Third Sunday of Easter 

  Beginning with Praise (9:50 am)  "In thee is gladness"                                     114
  Announcements
  Prelude                        "Prelude and Fugue in G Major"                           Bach

  Call to Worship

*Hymn                          "I know that my Redeemer lives"                             279

*Opening Prayer

  Scripture                                      Acts 9:1-6

  Unison Prayer of Confession                                                                     700

  Hymn                                 (vs. 1-4) "Holy Spirit, Truth divine"                            508

  Sharing a joy, a concern, a word of testimony or praise
                                 (please be brief, and aware of God's listening presence)

  Hymn                                 (vs. 5-6) "Holy Spirit, Truth divine"                            508

  Pastoral Prayer

  Video                               "Breakfast on the Beach"

  Scripture                                    John 21:1-19

  Returning our Tithes and Offerings

  Offertory                                          "Fughetta"                                         Rembt
                                        (Please sign the attendance pad and pass it on)

*Response                  (vs. 2) "All people that on earth do dwell"                        42

*Dedication

  Scripture                                       Psalm 30

  Message                           "From weeping to joy" (mp3)

*Hymn                            "Joyful, joyful, we adore thee"                                 71

*Benediction

*Postlude                                        "Geneva"                                     Bourgeois

*Rise in body or in spirit

#'s are from Hymnal: A Worship Book

Worship leaders - see basic guidelines

Call to Worship

            The fourth and fifth chapters of the last book in the Bible reveal what one commentator has called “the last word on worship.”* In it a door to heaven opens and John is taken up to the very throne room of God, where what he sees and hears is beyond his wildest imagination.
            We begin worship this day with the end of that particular vision, full of saints and angels singing praise to the risen Christ, the Lamb who was slain. Open your imagination and seek to see and hear what these words all-too-inadequately try to express. Through them, allow yourself to be led into the very presence of God. Listen.

¹¹Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, ¹²singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” ¹³Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” ¹⁴And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

(Revelation 5:11-14, NRSV)

Please rise in body or spirit and add your voice to the heavenly chorus.

*Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder:
The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination,
©1988, Harper & Row.
  

Opening Prayer

            We praise you, O God, for restoring to life your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Through his great love, woundedness is healed and mercy experienced as lives are transformed with his resurrected life and power. His victory over sin and death gives us the confidence to move from sorrow to joy, from mourning to dancing. We praise you and adore you, O God, for your graciousness towards us. To you, and to Jesus our Lord, be all blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! Amen

by Rev Moira Laidlaw,
Uniting Church in Australia,
from Liturgies Online.
 

Scripture
Acts 9:1-6 

            We turn next to the Acts of the Apostles, where we find a man intent on wiping out the followers of Jesus before they spread like a virus among the children of Israel. He had been among those who stoned to death one of the first deacons of the church, and might have done great damage had not God intervened. In the following scripture we hear the beginning of that intervention in the life of the man who later became known as the apostle Paul. Listen.

¹Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ²and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” ⁵He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

            You and I may not be as misguided as Saul was on that day long ago. Even so, like him we come to God just as we are and, like him, find in the risen Christ our purpose and power. Please turn to the back of your hymnal to #700, and join me in a unison Prayer of Confession written over 400 years ago by one of our Anabaptist forebearers, Menno Simons.
  

Unison Prayer of Confession

Lord Jesus,
         blind I am, do thou enlighten me;
         naked I am, do thou clothe me;
         wounded, do thou heal me;
         dead, do thou quicken me.
I know of no light,
         no physician,
         no life, except thee. AMEN

Hymnal #700
by Menno Simons, 16th c., "Meditation on the 25th Psalm,"
from The Complete Writings of Menno Simons,
translated by Leonard Verduin, ed. J.C. Wenger,
© 1956 Herald Press, Scottdale, PA 15683.
     

Pastoral Prayer

written closer to the time (if not at the moment)

"Breakfast on the Beach"

            From the series “Fish Eyes” by Ted & Lee. This Mennonite comedy duo inspired many. Our denomination's every-fourth-year National Youth Conference has been blessed by their humor several times. We were saddened by the tragic death of Lee Eshleman 3 years ago. Ted Swartz will share with our youth at NYC this summer through Ted and Company. In this final segment of the video, we see the disciples “Pete and Andy” out fishing after Easter.
  

Returning our Tithes and Offerings

Those who have cared for sheep know that these animals are not exactly the cuddly-cute critters of our imagination. They scare easily, smell bad, and their bleat often sounds more like a belch. It’s interesting that God’s people are often called “sheep” in the Bible. Do you suppose that it’s because we are so cuddly-cute?
            Jesus, the “Lamb of God,” called Peter on that beach long ago to “feed my sheep.” As you return your offering just now, think about what that might mean for you, for Jesus was not just talking to Peter with those words. He was looking us in the eye as he spoke. Still is.

Ushers?
  

Dedication

Empower us
     to nurture those newborn in faith,
     to search for those still scattered
     on the hillsides of the world
     waiting for shepherd love.
Empower us
     to gather together
     your other sheep
     in our communities
     and to the ends of the earth.
Empower us, Lord,
     to tend your flock.  AMEN

Hymnal #761
Copyright © 1988 Linea Reimer Geiser.
  

Benediction

perhaps one of these two: