You can watch some parts of the service in this video here (mostly bible readings and the message) or scroll down and read the prayers and songs in the order they happened.
LIGHTING THE CANDLE
Be with us today in our listening, our singing, our praising
We light this candle and give praise for
the gifts that lift and inspire us in our everyday living:
Welcome to our service this morning. We believe that we are all created lovingly and wonderfully in the image of God, and we welcome everyone to this church and worship time together. We love sharing our love and care to others. Please feel very welcome this morning in the church or watching on Zoom
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
We acknowledge the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians on whose lands we meet today and pay our respects to the Elders of the past, present and future. We commit to walking together gently across these lands in friendship, trust, justice and healing.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
People without faith in God
are like thistledown on a whirlwind.
Our help is in the name of the living God
who has made heaven and earth.
Come then, let us bow down,
let us quieten ourselves in the presence
of God our Creator and Redeemer.
For our God is the truest Friend,
we are the people fed by Divine love,
the family under the care of Holy hands.
Let us pray:
God our holy Parent, the magnitude and mystery of the universe is a simple thing to you;
help us to come to you with both awe and trust.
Christ Jesus our holy Friend the wonder of the Gospel of love is a free gift from you;
help us to come to you with open hearts.
Spirit-Truth, our holy Friend, the power that sustains all things is contained in your intimacy;
help us to come to you with high expectations.
Please bless us, most loving God, for in your blessing is our health and our happiness.
For your love’s sake.
Amen
HYMN: We are your people
1 We are your people; Spirit of grace, you dare to make us
to all our neighbours Christ’s living voice, hands and face.
2 Joined in community, treasured and fed, may we discover gifts in each other, willing to lead and be led
3 Rich in diversity, help us to live closer than neighbours, open to strangers, able to clash and forgive.
4 Glad of tradition, help us to see in all life’s changing, where you are leading, where our best efforts should be.
5 Give, as we venture justice and care (peaceful, resisting, waiting or risking) wisdom to know when and where.
6 Christ, as we serve you in different ways, may all we’re doing show that you’re living, meeting your love with our praise.
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Sin is falling short of the mark. Let us make our confession.
Holy Friend, even if we had not seen your light and love in Jesus, we might be discontented with many of our thoughts, words and actions. But since you have shown your beauty in Christ, we are much more aware of how badly we have fallen short; of how far we are from fulfilling our potential.
We bring to you now the conglomerate that comprises our lives. We bring the small diamonds of success and the clay of failure, the gems we are proud to remember and the slag that makes us ashamed, the silver smattering of wisdom and the dross of our folly, the hopes that still shine like gold and the mud of pessimism. We confess all that we are and everything we have been, and put ourselves unconditionally in your hands.
Lord have mercy Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy Lord have mercy.
Holy Friend, we thank you that the same Christ whose beauty highlights our fallen condition, also highlights your inexhaustible mercy. In your hands is forgiveness, in your hands is healing, in your hands is encouragement, in your hands is peace. Touch us now and we shall be made whole. For your love’s sake,
Amen
FORGIVENESS
Sisters and brothers, Christ did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be redeemed. He is the one who declares “Your sins are forgiven you. Go in peace.”
Thanks be to God
Hymn 648
1 Help us accept each other as Christ accepted us; teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace.
Be present, Lord, among us and bring us to believe we are ourselves accepted, and meant to love and live.
2 Teach us, O Lord, your lessons, as in our daily life we struggle to be human and search for hope and faith.
Teach us to care for people, for all, not just for some, to love them as we find them or as they may become.
3 Let your acceptance change us, so that we may be moved in living situations to do the truth in love;
to practice your acceptance until we know by heart the table of forgiveness, and laughter’s healing art.
4 Lord, for today’s encounters with all who are in need, who hunger for acceptance, for righteousness and bread,
we need new eyes for seeing, new hands for holding on: renew us with your Spirit; Lord, free us, make us one!
BIBLE Readings Romans 12 1 – 8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.[a]
3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness
Matthew 20 20 = 28
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”[c] They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
24 When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”
SERMON: John
Offering: Let us pray:
Generous God, we bring our many gifts and talents..
Let your Holy Spirit breathe life into our giving and serving,
so that all we do may bring glory to your name. Amen
Prayers of the People Karen
Hymn
1 Forth in your name, O Lord, I go, my daily labour to pursue, you, Lord, alone resolved to know, in all I think, or speak, or do.
2 Each task your wisdom has assigned still let me cheerfully fulfil, in all my works your presence find, and prove your good and perfect will.
3 You may I set at my right hand, whose eyes my inmost substance view, and labour on at your command, and offer all my works to you.
4 Give me to bear your easy yoke, and every moment watch and pray, and still to things eternal look, and hasten to your glorious day;
SENDING OUT
Dear friends let us by the mercies of God to present our lives as a living sacrifice, set aside and acceptable to God.
The love of Christ inspires us.
Lets not conform to the thinking of this age but be transformed by the renewal of our minds,
The love of Christ empowers us.
The love of Christ Jesus will enable us
the love of God will underpin us,
the friendship of the Spirit will fulfil us today and for ever.
Hymn: May the feet of God
May be feet of God walk with you, And his hand hold you tight, May the eye of God rest on you, And his ear hear your cry.
May the smile of God be for you, And his breath give you life, May the child of God grow in you And his love bring you home.
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