2017 National Gathering Monday Afternoon Worship
On Monday afternoon of the National Gathering, our worship service consisted of liturgy, music, and readings.
Scripture: John 4:1-10
Music: Neema Community Choir
Worship Liturgy
A Thought for Personal Meditation
“I knew too that this new war was not even new but was only the old one come again. And what caused it? It was caused, I thought, by people failing to love one another, failing to love their enemies. I was glad enough that I had not become a preacher, and so would not have to go through a war pretending that Jesus had not told us to love our enemies.”
– Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
Call to Worship
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money, come, buy and eat.
Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor that that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
We come now,
for we are a people of parched throats
and hungry hearts.
We come now,
for we are hungry
for the brokenness of our yesterdays
to be gathered up in mercy,
for the injuries we have caused one another
to be healed in honest forgiveness,
for the talent we have to see the wrong
to be replaced with the gift to see the good.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
A Responsive Prayer of Confession
Confession of 1967
The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ
has set the pattern for the church’s mission.
His life as mortal involves the church in the common life of humanity.
His service to humanity commits the church to work
for every form of human well-being.
And we, the church of this living-dying-rising-coming again Christ
Have brought shame on his name,
for tolerating human suffering,
for justifying human oppression,
for accepting racial division,
for ignoring the enslaving power of poverty.
This is the history we all share.
His suffering makes the church sensitive
to all the sufferings of humankind
so that it sees the face of Christ
in the faces of all in every kind of need.
And we, the church of this living-dying-rising-coming again Christ
have ignored his sensitivities
as we fail to see him in the face of the stranger,
as we refuse to see him in the suffering of the stranger,
as we deny that we see him in the dying of the stranger.
For we are sensitive to our own suffering,
and our own fear,
and our own cynicism.
This is the history we share.
His crucifixion discloses to the church God’s judgment
on humanity’s inhumanity and
the awful consequences of its own complicity in injustice.
And we, the church of this living-dying-rising-coming again Christ,
are participating in his crucifixion,
as the way of the world is to crucify love.
We confess our complicity in humanity’s inhumanity.
But not only this:
We confess that we are hungry for
the broken to be mended,
the bruised to be comforted,
and the sinful to be turned around and made right.
We, the church of this living-dying-rising-coming again Christ
thirst for living water for all.
This is the prayer we share.
(Silent Prayer)
Assurance of God’s Grace
In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming
the church sees the promise of God’s renewal of life
in society and
of God’s victory over all wrong.
The church follows this pattern in the form of its life and
in the method of its action.
So to live and serve is to confess Christ as Lord.
As a forgiven people,
bathed in grace,
given one more day to live and serve the living-dying-rising-coming again Christ:
We live trusting on God’s victory over all wrong,
in us
in Christ’s Church
in God’s World.
The Sending
Jesus Christ came into a world where Jews do not share things in common with Samarians—
in this world we are called to live in faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
His life, death, resurrection, and promised coming
has set the pattern for the church’s mission.
In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming
The church sees the promise of God’s renewal of life
in society and
of God’s victory over all wrong.
So to live and serve is to confess Christ as Lord.
Bearing witness to a promised day that we have yet to see,
but on which we base our lives,
we will live this day in trust.
In whom do you trust?
I trust in Jesus Christ my Savior, and acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
How does God’s Word come to you?
I accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to me.
I further receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will be instructed and led by those confessions.
How shall Christ shape your life?
I will serve in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by the confessions.
How will you live in Christ’s church?
I will be governed by our church’s polity, and will abide by its discipline. I will be a friend among my colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject o the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit.
How will you serve the world?
I will seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love my neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world.
How will you serve the church?
I promise to further the peace, unity and purity of the church.
How will you serve the people?
With energy, imagination intelligence and love.
To live and to serve is to confess Jesus Christ as Lord.