The service can be watched here
Acknowledgement of country
From before recorded time, the Dharawal People cared for this Land. We praise the Creator for the beauty of this Land and honour those who have offered themselves in tending it.
We acknowledge and pay our respects to the Elders and communities who have told the sacred stories and nurtured faithfulness to the Creator, and who carry the stories today.
We ask God’s blessing on all those who continue to work for the healing and restoration of this Land and Her Communities.
All: In doing so, we recommit to the path of reconciliation and justice that God lays before us.
Statement of Welcome
The story of God is bigger, wider, more inclusive and welcoming, filled with more love than we could ever imagine. There is room here for everyone , there is room here for you.
Lighting of the Christ Candle and Call to Worship
Once there was someone who said such wonderful things and did such amazing things that people just had to ask him who he was. One time when they asked him who he was he said:
“I am the light of the world, and whoever walks with me will never walk in darkness” This is the one who we follow.
Jesus is light – not just of this place, of just this nation, or just of people like us. Jesus is the light of the world.
And so, we gather, knowing that we are joined across the world by countless thousands of our brothers and sisters. In cathedrals and cottages, people are gathered, candles are lit, and the Spirit of God threads us together in love and grace.
Across the globe we gather to worship. Our God is here!
Congregation: God’s Spirit dwells with us.
Worship Leader: We are one in Christ.
Introduction
Friends, today is a special service to focus our attention on what Christ is doing in our world.
We in the Uniting Church in Australia are connected in partnership with churches across the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Our partners are vibrant, inspiring, and dedicated people of God who are transforming lives and communities for the better.
Many of our overseas church relationships reach back more than 150 years and have impacted countless lives, through many generations.
Through these relationships, we seek to act as one body of Christ in the world, each playing our part to build hope and end poverty and injustice.
UnitingWorld is the agency that manages these partnerships for the wider Uniting Church, and today we have a chance to hear more about their work and to celebrate our global neighbours together.
Hymn/Song: Beauty For Brokenness
Beauty for brokenness
Hope for despair
Lord in Your suff’ring world
This is our prayer
Bread for the children
Justice joy peace
Sunrise to sunset
Your kingdom increase
Shelter for fragile lives
Cures for their ills
Work for the craftsmen
Trade for their skills
Land for the dispossessed
Rights for the weak
Voices to plead the cause
Of those who can’t speak
Chorus
God of the poor
Friend of the weak
Give us compassion we pray
Melt our cold hearts
Let tears fall like rain
Come change our love
From a spark to a flame
Refuge from cruel wars
Havens from fear
Cities for sanctu’ry
Freedoms to share
Peace to the killing fields
Scorched earth to green
Christ for the bitterness
His cross for the pain
Rest for the ravaged earth
Oceans and streams
Plundered and poisoned
Our future our dreams
Lord end our madness
Carelessness greed
Make us content with
The things that we need
Lighten our darkness
Breathe on this flame
Until Your justice
Burns brightly again
Until the nations
Learn of Your ways
Seek Your salvation
And bring You their praise
CCLI Song # 1236690, Graham Kendrick © 1993 Make Way Music (Admin. by CopyCare Pacific Pty. Ltd.) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
Prayer Of Invocation/Welcome
God who knows no boundaries, who neither time nor space can hinder. God who pursues us with unconditional love and inexhaustible grace.
God who lifts us out of blindness and conflict and shows us the path of reconciliation and unity with each other.
We turn our hearts and our minds to you in worship.
We come to you, each of us in our aloneness, and all of us in our yearning for true community.
Meet us here today, Lord Jesus. Help us to lay aside the distractions, the anxiety and the sorrows that hinder. Fill our hearts with your presence and our minds with your guidance. Refresh and renew our spirits, so that we may once again remember the joy of being known and loved by you.
And today, as we turn our gaze to the wonders that you are working across the world, help us feel true connection and compassion for all your people across the world. Fill our hearts with joy and humility as we bear witness to the power of your love working through human hands. Awaken in us again that zeal to be a part of your work. Fill our eyes with your vision for a world renewed and reconciled. Give us courage to act boldly in obedience to your call on our lives.
Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.
Prayer of adoration and confession
Oh, Holy One, we want to praise you with songs and psalms,
with our words and actions each day.
Yet, most days, we forget for a moment or the day: forget to say hello to you;
forget to listen carefully for you;
forget to watch and see you in the people we meet,
the wind in the leaves, the butterfly landing on a petal.
When we forget to praise you continuously, forgive us, please:
meet us with your love and mercy.
Feel the embrace of Wisdom, Spirit, Parent, in Jesus’ outstretched arms of blessing.
Forgiveness is for all: receive God’s grace, and remember, you are witnesses to Mercy.
Live in that blessing with peace. Amen.
Recorded worship song: “One in Christ”. https://vimeo.com/showcase/10270659
HEARING THE WORD
Readings (Rob)
Let us pray: God, please open our ears and minds and hearts so that as we hear the words of the Bible, you will speak to us and bring us new life.
Acts 1:6–14
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.
All: Thank you, God, for your words of life.
Sermon: John McK
Hymn/Song: God of Jeremiah
God of Jeremiah, Grieving with an aching heart
For an empire unbelieving as it falls apart
When Your thunder goes unheard, we will tend the prophet’s word
And in season out of season, We will sing Your song
When our wound is left to fester Though the pain goes deep
When we’ve sown a hundred whirlwinds But have yet to reap
When the platitudes of peace Only make our fears increase
With a poem and a story We will sing Your song
Verse 3
When the palace Looks at poverty with scornful eyes
When the scroll of truth is shredded By a leader’s lies
When the glory of the cross Is a propaganda gloss
In the square and in the senate We will sing Your song
Verse 4
We will break the jar of plenty By the gates of gold
We will buy a field of promise When the farm is sold
At the ending of the dream In the death of false esteem
At the bank and in the market We will sing Your song
Verse 5
We will praise the grainy granite Of the Law’s demands
And the Life-creating Lover-God with wounded hands
We will spin your storyline To an empire in decline
And in exile or in honour We will sing Your song
CCLI Song # 1762786, Brian Arthur Wren © 1993 Hope Publishing Company For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Offertory prayer
Loving God, we join today in celebration of your work in your world. We give you thanks for all the people reaching out in love and compassion in your name, and for the countless more acts of grace and works of your Spirit that go unnoticed.
We give you thanks, too, for calling us to be part of this story, participants by word and deed in the work of making your Kingdom known to all.
We give thanks for all those who have gone before us and championed this work, and those who weaved our call to support the global church into the Uniting Church’s founding documents.
And as part of our response to that call, we bring these gifts, and with them, we recommit ourselves into your service. Use our money and ourselves, here in our local community, and throughout your world.
For we ask in the name of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Prayers of the people (Loraine)
LEADER:
God of infinite compassion, from age to age we tell the stories of Jesus’ time on earth comforting the suffering, healing the sick, speaking out against injustice, challenging the powerful, and bringing hope to all humanity. Though those feet no longer walk the earth, and those hands no longer rest on the afflicted, we know you still hear the calling of your people, and we bring our prayers for the world in this time.
SPEAKER 1:
We pray for all people struggling for the essentials of life – for food, clothing and shelter, but also for healthcare and education – we pray that every bowl and every belly might be filled, and that every child might have the hope that comes from learning and dreaming. We pray for everyone who is oppressed or exploited in this time, and for victims of violence and trauma, that their wounds might be healed with peace, grace and justice.
SPEAKER 2:
We pray for our partners addressing extreme poverty in places like India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Give them hope and courage as they help the most marginalised people to overcome poverty and injustice.
SPEAKER 3:
We pray for our partners across the Pacific who are fighting the impacts of disasters and the changing climate, at the same time as preparing their communities and building resilience to future disasters. May we learn from their example and play our part to address the threat of climate change.
SPEAKER 4:
We pray for our partners training and equipping the next generation of Christian leaders in places like Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Fill them with passion and creativity to be your hands and feet and spread hope in their communities.
SPEAKER 5:
We pray for our partners raising up women in the church and community and leading a discussion on the biblical basis for gender equality and anti-violence. In the Pacific, where rates of men’s violence against women are among the highest in the world, we pray that our partners’ messages continue to cut through and change hearts.
LEADER:
Lord God, we pray for UnitingWorld staff and our partners, and the life-changing work that you are doing through our Christian family cross the globe.
We pray for the courage to remain engaged with the messy, broken, beautiful world around us and that we would each find ways to play our part as the body of Christ – whether down the street or the other side of the world.
Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father and Mother who is in us here on earth, holy is your name in the hungry who share their bread and their song. Your Kingdom come, which is a generous land flowing with milk and honey.
Let us do your will, standing up when all are sitting down, and raising our voice when all are silent. You are giving us our daily bread in the song of the bird and the miracle of the corn.
Forgive us for keeping silent in the face of injustice, and for burying our dreams; for not sharing bread and wine, love and the land, among us, now.
Don’t let us fall into the temptation of shutting the door through fear, of resigning ourselves to hunger and injustice, of taking up the same arms as the enemy. But deliver us from evil.
Give us the perseverance and the solidarity to look for love, even if the path has not yet been trodden, even if we fail; so we shall have known your Kingdom which is being built forever and ever. Amen.
Hymn/Song: There’s a spirit in the air (TIS 414)
There’s a spirit in the air
Telling Christians everywhere
Praise the love that Christ revealed
Living working in our world
Lose your shyness find your tongue
Tell the world what God has done
God in Christ has come to stay
Live tomorrow’s life today
When believers break the bread
When a hungry child is fed
Praise the love that Christ revealed
Living working in our world
Still the Spirit gives us light
Seeing wrong and setting right
God in Christ has come to stay
Live tomorrow’s life today
When a stranger’s not alone
Where the homeless find a home
Praise the love that Christ revealed
Living working in our world
May the Spirit fill our praise
Guide our thoughts and change our ways
God in Christ has come to stay
Live tomorrow’s life today
There’s a Spirit in the air
Calling people everywhere
Praise the love that Christ revealed
Living working in our world
CCLI Song # 133165 Brian Arthur Wren | John Whitridge Wilson © Words: 1979, 1995 Hope Publishing Company Music: 1967 Oxford University Press For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
Benediction
May God bless us with a spirit of solidarity to fight together against poverty, injustice, social inequality and environmental damage.
May God bless us with the spirit of courage to improve, renew and transform the social order that has lost its conscience because of greed and selfishness.
May God bless us with a spirit of gentleness to hear and understand the voices of those who are oppressed, left behind and pushed aside by the bustle of worldly pride.
May God bless us with a spirit of peace amidst the difficulties and challenges of the world so that we can continue to be God’s witnesses who radiate love, generosity, forgiveness and hope.
In the name of Christ.
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