Summer 2000: Summer Grace

 

Seekers Church

A Christian Community

In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour

 

Summer Grace

 

Reflection

I think it is important to enjoy myself,

And I want others to enjoy themselves in what we’re doing,

to see fun and pleasure as well as commitment as part of being in community.

 

PRELUDE

 

 

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader:             Spirit of wonder and unlimited vision,

we praise you for the bounty of the creation that surrounds us

and for all the marvels of life we have known.

 

Voice 1:           Giver of life,

we come in faith and in doubt,

open to your love, truth and wholeness. 

Be with us, hear us as we worship and pray.

Voice 2:           Gentle one of the earth,

whose arms have held children,

whose eyes have sparkled with laughter,

we come yearning to trust your companionship.

 

Leader:            We are alive with divinity.  

We are alive with humanity.

We have been touched by grace.

 

INVOCATION

 

HYMN

 

SILENCE

 

LITANY OF SUMMER GRACE

Leader:            Gracious, eternal Creator,

you ask each of us to show our love for you

by tending and feeding your world and its people.

 

Community:      We respond "yes" to your call to live.

 

Leader:            Risen, living Christ,

you embrace the whole world

with human/divine love and caring.

 

Community:      We respond "yes" to your call to live.

 

Leader:            Holy Spirit, you go before us and call us into the future. 

You energize us to dream new visions,

to be open to new risks

and to the unknown.

 

Community:      We respond "yes" to your call to live.

 

Leader:            Living, mysterious Holy One,

enable us to recognize the people and places

to whom we are being sent.

 

Unison:            We join your embrace of the whole world

with our prayers.

 

SILENCE

 

PRAYERS

COMMON CONFESSION

Leader:            We know how important it is

to not ask for more from a situation than is possible,

but sometimes that isn’t easy. 

We want to take each other seriously, to move with that and hope good things will come –

Community:      but sometimes that isn’t easy. 

 

Leader:            We also want to have a light touch and be willing to let go easily

with the anticipation that there are other possibilities

and that moving on gives space for the unexpected and surprising –

 

Community:      but sometimes that isn’t easy. 

 

Leader:            We’d like to keep from spending undue energy

in getting bogged down with something that isn’t working –

but sometimes that isn’t easy.

 

Unison:            God of love and life, forgive us when we hang on too tightly

to what we think is the only way. 

 

INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

ASSURANCE

Leader:            Our challenge in Seekers

is to be prophetic as a group,

to be a prophetic community. 

That means re-inventing for our times

what it means to embody compassion and justice

in our homes, at work, in the community

and the whole earth. 

And God is with us in that re-Creation. Amen

 

PRAYERS OF THE COMMUNITY

 

HYMN

 

THE WORD

FIRST LESSON

SILENCE

GOSPEL LESSON

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

 

OFFERING

 

SHARED REFLECTIONS

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

HYMN

 

BENEDICTION

Leader:            Embrace summer’s leisure even as you look to fall’s commitments.

Bathe daily in God’s green bounty.

Live and breathe each precious moment in a spirit of grace.