Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Long Green & Kanes Rds., near Glen Arm, Md.
August 4, 2013
Worship 10:00 am

  Beginning with Praise (9:50 am)        "Teach me the measure of my days"       485
  Announcements
  Prelude

   Invitation to worship

*Hymn                                "We praise thee, O God"                                   99

*Opening Prayer

  Scripture                                Colossians 3:5-11

  As we return our Tithes and Offerings                                   (see bulletin back)

  Story                   "The Biggest House in the World"           Leo Lionni
                              (Please sign the attendance pad and pass it on)

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

   Hymn                                    "Blessed assurance"                                      332

  Pastoral Prayer

  Scripture                                   Luke 12:13-21

  Message                             "Real barn raising" (mp3)

*Hymn                                  "Lord, thou dost love"                                     387

*Benediction

*Postlude

*Rise in body or in spirit

#'s are from Hymnal: A Worship Book

Worship leaders - see basic guidelines

Invitation to worship

1 - So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.

2 - Pursue the things over which Christ presides.

1 - Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.

2 - Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ - that’s where the action is.

1 - See things from his perspective.

2 - Your old life is dead. Your new life,

1 - which is your real life - even though invisible to spectators -

2 - Your new life is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ

1 - (your real life, remember)

2 - When Christ shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too -

1 - the real you, the glorious you.

2 - Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

(pause to indicate the reading has ended)

1 - Well, brothers and sisters, shall we rise in body or spirit

2 - and sing as those who are serious about living this new resurrection life in Christ?

1 - “We praise thee, O God,” #99 in your hymnal.

2 - May the Lord “revive us again.”

Scripture taken from The Message.
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002.
Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
       

Opening Prayer

             God of grace, we come to you with our daily burdens, asking for rest. We pray for the peace that only comes when we are willing to step away from the heaviness of our lives and seek the true life you have in mind for us.
            God of all of us, God of each of us, we pray for your presence here in this place, and in all places. Open our hearts and minds to your teachings, that we might share your peace with all those in need. Amen.

by Donna Kline from Evangelectionary
       

Colossians 3:5-11
(from The Laughing Bird Version)

            So, since your old life has been extinguished, make sure you stamp out any remnants of it that might spark up within you and set it off again. Don’t char your sexuality with trivialized, loveless flings. Expel the fumes of moral contamination. Douse smoldering compulsions. Remove anything that might fuel greed, because after all, greed is just another form of idolatry. God is getting ready to deal with those who have been defiantly allowing these sorts of things to burn out of control. You were once implicated in all this, because those things were all part the kind of life you used to live. But now you must purge yourselves of all such things — bitterness, vengefulness, spite, slander, and any tendency to mouth off in ways that insult and humiliate others. And don’t lie to one another. Dishonesty may have been a natural part of the old persona you all once wore, but you’ve stripped all that off, along with all its accessories, and decked yourselves out in a whole new persona. The new you is becoming more and more like your creator as your minds are reconstructed and your understanding grows. In this renewed life, we are no longer divided up into factions based on our backgrounds. It no longer makes any difference at all whether you were from this ethnic group or that, one religious tradition or another; whether you were educated or illiterate, refined or rough-nut, welfare dependent or money-to-burn. Every possible distinction among you is rendered irrelevant, because now Christ is in all of you and all of you are in Christ.

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
   

As we return our Tithes and Offerings

One:     God of abundance, who gives us daily bread,
            we hear the drumbeat of greed in our land,
            whispering from our TVs, screaming at the mall.
            We slip so easily into a trance-like dance,
            from the clang of register drawers,
            the swipe of credit cards, and the tapping of screens. 

Many:  O God, incline our ears to your proverb. 

One:     Children silently starve,
            watching fast-moving designer feet fly by,
            while we save our pity for the lost on other shores,
            forgetting our next-door neighbors. 

Many:  O God, incline our ears to your proverb. 

One:     Lead us like a drum major, horn-blowing God,
            to fling open the doors of the storehouses
            and the banks and the foreclosed homes,
            until all are wrapped in your melody
            and dance in the streets to the joyful rhythms
            of your justice, mercy, love, and peace. 

Many:  O God, incline our ears to your proverb. 

All:      Solve our riddles to the music of your harp.
            May it be so. Amen. 

based on Psalm 49:1-12
by Katie Shaw Thompson, co-pastor
Ivester Church of the Brethren
Grundy Center, Iowa
Church of the Brethren Living Word Bulletin
Anchor/Wallace, Sleepy Eye MN 56085, "The Living Word Series"
     

Story
"The Biggest House in the World"
by Leo Lionni

             The time has come for us to return our tithes and offerings to the Lord. As we do so, I’d like our children to come forward for a story…

             “The Biggest House in the World, by Leo Lionni, tells the story of a snail who kept growing a bigger and fancier shell house until the shell became so heavy he could not move on to find food.  Like today’s scripture (Luke 12:13-21) it is a story within a story.  The whole book can be read in about 4 minutes.  But it would also be possible to read only the story within the larger story and thus pare back reading time.”   - Carolyn C. Brown
     

Pastoral Prayer

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

Benediction

Happy are they who know where real wealth is found.
Happy are they who take this wealth and share it.

Prepare to leave this place with spirits lighter than when you came in.
Trust that God in Christ will take an intimate interest
             in the costly investment he has made in all of us.
      In so trusting, invest in others as his love has been invested in you.

And may the grace of Christ redeem you,
               the love of God enfold you,
         and the fellowship of the Spirit empower you.

Amen!

heavily adapted from “A Blessing for the Willing”
by Bruce Prewer, Uniting Church in Australia.