Recommitment 1995: Rekindle the Flame

 

SEEKERS CHURCH

A Christian Community

In the Tradition of Church of the Saviour

Recommitment 1995

 

Rekindle the Flame

 

REFLECTION

 

            Thou shalt burn

                        and never be extinguished

                        like a living spark

                                    in the great Fire

                                                of the living Majesty.

            If one blows

                        even on the tiniest spark

                                    it gives forth both heat

                                                and light in the fire of heaven

                                    where all the radiant saints abide

 

Meditations with Mecthild of Magdburg, pg 103.

 

PRELUDE

 

CALL TO WORSHIP

 

Leader:With billions of God's created children,

  we are intertwined by ties of guilt and laughter,

  sinew and cell,

  and the dilemmas of human destiny.

We are grateful for this far-flung kinship.

 

People:We are being called,

  through our inheritance from Jesus of Nazareth,

  to be members of God's family,

  heirs to God's promises.

 

Leader:In baptism we are made sure of our adoption;

  in communion we are offered the food of life

  by God's hand.

Therefore we know for certain

  that our dwelling is with God.

 

Unison:Among all believers and churches,

  among all who pray and praise and give,

  we stand in faith — one vast circle.

We lift before the world the word,

  the sacraments, and the gathered community.

 

INVOCATION

 

HYMN

 

WORD FOR THE CHILDREN

 

CHILDREN LEAVE FOR CLASSES

 

SILENCE

 

LITANY OF FIRE

 

Leader:The nights are cool.

                        The trees are bright.

                        Great Eternal Drumbeat,

                        Call us to your circling fire.

 

Voice 1:Your hearth is warm with glowing embers.

            Your mystery enfolds our souls.

 

Voice 2:You are as close as our heartbeat;

As far as the burning stars.

 

Voice 1:Your power is in a gentle breath.

You fan the sparks of faith,

                        and tongues of flame reach the sky.

 

Voice 2:Your life waits in the silent coal.

The crackling fire consumes the night.

 

Unison:Great Eternal Drumbeat,

            Call us to your circling fire.

 

SILENCE

 

PRAYERS

 

CONFESSION 

 

Leader:The world is stepping back from life:

 

Voice 1:We look for some place to come in out of the cold,

                        and find ourselves too far from home

                          to go back for the night.

 

Voice 2:We can be so hungry for how it was,

              or how we think it was when we remember.

 

Leader:How easy it can be to feel alone.

 

Unison:          Forgive us Holy Fire of Creation,

              when we would rather shiver with our memories

              than gather wood, await your spark,

              and let your warming presence

              draw us close to one another.

 

INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

 

ASSURANCE  (Leader)

 

The God of every thought and thing

              is here beside, within, beyond us,

              lighting the loving fire in our hearts,

              and drawing lightning in the night to show the way.

 

CONTINUING PRAYERS

 

HYMN

 

THE WORD

 

SCRIPTURE

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

 

OFFERING

OFFERTORY MUSIC

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

 

SHARED REFLECTIONS

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

HYMN

 

BENEDICTION  (Leader)

 

            In Christ, we commit ourselves to love each other,

  to build up our body which is God's body,

  to love the world as it is and so to change it.

 

            God of all creation, send us forth

  to be love in this time and place.  AMEN.