You can watch the bible readings and sermon here, or scroll down to read the rest of the Sunday prayers and content, and watch this video at the point it occurs during worship.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
For thousands of years, the Dharawal people have walked on this ancient land, on country.
The Creator spoke to them in their Dreaming, for they too are made in the image of God.
We honour and pay our respects to their elders, past and present and pledge ourselves to work together for reconciliation & justice making.
WELCOME
All are made in the image of God. You are made in the image of God. I am made in the image of God.
And if you know what it is to love or you have searched your whole life to find love, you are welcome
In Christ Jesus, we have discovered that God is love, a robust, compassionate, all embracing and all transforming and challenging love. That agape love we seek. Let us discover it afresh today.
CHRIST CANDLE for All Saints Day (1 Nov)
We believe Christ Jesus is the Light of the world. We are drawn to His light lest we lose our way.
To his Name be honour, praise and glory. A candle is lit.
CALL TO WORSHIP (Psalm 127 vs 1) Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
Welcoming God, you invite us to come and spend time ‘at home’ with you.
Through God’s mercy and grace we have been invited.
Encouraging God, you call us to a purposeful life in a God-centred community.
Through God’s mercy and grace we live ‘at home’ with God and each other.
Gracious God, you call us and have given us in Christ Jesus as our pattern for daily life.
We are called to live this pattern with you and with each other in your Creation.
Christ calls us here to gather in the presence of the Spirit, who makes us God’s own.
We come in humility, joining with the people of God in all times and places.
HYMN
Bring many names, beautiful and good
Celebrate, in parable and story, holiness in glory
Living, loving God: Hail and hosanna, bring many names!
Strong mother God, working night and day
Planning all the wonders of creation, setting each equation
Genius at play: Hail and hosanna, strong mother God!
Warm father God, hugging every child
Feeling all the strains of human living, caring and forgiving
Till we’re reconciled: Hail and hosanna, warm father God!
Old, aching God, grey with endless care
Calmly piercing evil’s new disguises, glad of good surprises
Wiser than despair: Hail and hosanna, old, aching God!
Young, growing God, eager, on the move
Saying no to falsehood and unkindness, crying out for justice
Giving all you have: Hail and hosanna, young, growing God!
Great, living God, never fully known
Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing, closer yet than breathing
Everlasting home: Hail and hosanna, great living God!
Brian Arthur Wren 1936 – Copyright Hope Publishing Co USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS
OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE READING
Ruth 1: 1 – 20 1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!” At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.
This hymn is used today as our PRAYER OF CONFESSION
God! When human bonds are broken and we lack the love or skill to restore the hope of healing give us grace and make us still.
Through that stillness, with your Spirit come into our world of stress for the sake of Christ forgiving; all the failures we confess.
You in us are bruised and broken: hear us as we seek release from the pain of earlier living; set us free and grant us peace.
Send us, God of new beginnings humbly hopeful into life. Use us as a means of blessing: make us stronger, in our faith.
Give us faith to be more faithful, Give us hope to be more true, Give us love to go on learning: God encourage and renew!
Fred Khan Words © 1989 Hope Publishing Company. CCLI # 31951
GOSPEL READING
Mark 12: 28 – 34 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. In these words are found wholeness and Life. Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE In every moment, of every day, without exception
HYMN
Fill my whole life, O Lord my God
in every part with praise
that my whole being may proclaim
your being and your ways.
Not for the lip of praise alone
nor ev’n the praising heart
I ask, but for a life made up
of praise in every part:
praise in the common things of life
its goings out and in;
praise in each duty and each deed
however small and mean.
Fill every part of me with praise:
let all my being speak
of you and of your love, O Lord,
poor though I be and weak.
So shall no part of day and night
from sacredness be free;
but with you, Lord, in every step
my fellowship will be.
Horatius Bonar 1808 – 1889 Public Domain.
ON THIS ALL SAINTS SUNDAY – ONE OF THE SAINTS OF GOD IN THIS PLACE
Terry: An introduction to her work
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/awards/2024/Pages/dragon-taming.aspx
Engaging young people in mental health treatment is crucial for their long term social, occupational and functional outcomes. Talking therapies play an important role in mental health treatment, however they can have drop-out rates of 25-30%. Our project aims to make therapy fun and engaging. We combine a table top role playing game – dungeons and dragons, with elements of talking therapies. It’s like hiding the vegetables in the mashed potatoes. Our participants are having fun, but they are learning at the same time. We are collecting data to show that it can be effective in reducing social anxiety, depression, PTSD and improve self-esteem. Our drop-out rates are also a lot smaller compared to regular therapies. To make sure it isn’t a fluke, we are planning to conduct a randomised control trial to compare participants in an intervention group with participants in a control group who play board games for a similar amount of time. The literature in the area of “therapeutically applied role playing games” is in its infancy and therefore we are hoping to add to the existing evidence to suggest that it’s effective. We have watched our participants really enjoy the group and they absolutely light up and blow us away with their creativity. – Terry S
OFFERING PRAYER & PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
LORD’S PRAYER
HOLY COMMUNION
We gather around this holy table at the invitation of our God and in communion with generations of your saints past and present. We come in praise of God, who is always and forever.
We gather as a foretaste of that heavenly banquet prepared for all whom you love Lord.
We share their names out loud…
Through Christ we are made welcome, in Him we are made holy.
WORDS OF INSTITUTION
The Lord be with you
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Who is this Jesus?
In the homes of Peter & Jairus, Martha & Susanna. He was always the guest.
At the meal tables of the wealthy, where he pled the case of the poor and the powerless.
He was always the guest. Upsetting polite company, befriending marginalised people welcoming the stranger and outcast. He was always the guest.
But here, at this table, he is Host.
Those who wish to serve him, must first be served by him.
Those who want to follow him, must first be fed by him.
For this is the table where God intends us to be nourished;
This is the time when God can make us new.
So come, you who are hungry and thirst for a deeper faith for a better world, for a life of justice.
Jesus Christ, who sat at our tables, now invites us to be his guests.
Let us then respond to his invitation with the words of the eternal hymn:
Holy, holy, holy Lord
God of power and might
Heaven and earth are full of your glory
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!
DISTRIBUTION
HYMN
There’s a light upon the mountains, and the day is at the spring
When our eyes shall see the beauty and the glory of the King
Weary was our heart with waiting, and the night-watch seemed so long
But his triumph day is breaking, and we hail it with a song.
There’s a hush of expectation and a quiet in the air
And the breath of God is moving in the fervent breath of prayer
For the suffering, dying Jesus is the Christ upon the throne
And the travail of our spirit is the travail of his own.
Hark, we hear a distant music, and it comes with fuller swell
The great triumph song of Jesus, of our King, Immanuel:
Zion, go you forth to meet him and my soul be swift to bring
All your finest and your dearest for the triumph of our King!
Henry Burton 1840 – 1930 By permission Methodist Publishing House, UK Public Domain
BLESSING & BENEDICTION
Recent Comments