Veradale United Church of Christ
An Open & Affirming Congregation
Worshiping God in Christ – Welcoming All – Working for Justice & Peace
“No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here!”
November 24, 2024
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10:20 Gathering and Prelude
Wayne Shull, Music Director
Joe McSwain, Usher
Jerry Brines, Usher
Tom Cuilla, Usher Coordinator and Scripture reader
Diane Smith, Candle lighter
______, Fellowship Set-up
Naomi Hanvey, Fellowship Clean-up
Scotty Patton, Zoom Monitor
Rev. Gen Heywood, Pastor
10:30am Entrance of Light as Worship Begins
We worship on the unceded traditional territory of the Spokane, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Coeur d’Alene, and other tribes. We acknowledge the history of indigenous genocide, removal, and erasure that continues to this day. We recognize the role that Christian communities played in these injustices, and we recommit ourselves to seeking more peaceful, just, and neighborly ways of sharing this land with all who call it home.
Community Affirmation
God’s blessings flow...all the time! All the time...God blessings flow!
Service and Fellowship Opportunities
Next Sunday: Advent 1 Hope, Psalm 25:1-10, Luke 21:25-36
Today! Thanksgiving potluck
Bible Study, Monday at 7pm
Silent Prayer, Tuesday 9:00 to 9:30am
String-A-Lings, Wednesday, 5:30pm; Sing-A-Lings Wednesday, 6:30pm
Bling-A-Lings, and Ding-A-Lings
Community giving this month: Salish School Fund Raiser
Welcoming the Light of Christ
*Hymn: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You” 4 (NCH)
Joyful, joyful, we adore you, God of glory, God of love. Hearts unfold like flowers before you, opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness. Drive the storms of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!
All your works with joy surround you, Earth and Heaven reflect your rays. Stars and angels sing around you, center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea, chanting bird and flowing fountain teach us what our praise should be.
You are giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blest. Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest! Loving Spirit, Father, Mother, all who love belong to you. Teach us how to love each other. By that love our joy renew.
Mortals, join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began. Boundless love is reigning o’er us, reconciling race and clan. Ever singing, move we forward, faithful in the midst of strife. Joyful music leads us onward, in the triumph song of life.
Community Prayer
Love, love, love , love, Christians this is your call. Love your neighbor as yourself for God loves us all. (one time)
Prayers of Gratitude: Refrain
Prayers of Concern: Refrain
Silent Prayer: Refrain
The Lord’s Prayer use the translation which is meaningful to you or
Our Father (Creator) who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Response: 759 (NCH)Glory to the Creator, the Christ, the Holy Spirit, three in One. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen.
A Time of Offering
Dedication Hymn : Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks because God’s given Jesus Christ, the Son. (repeat)
And now let the weak say, “I am strong!” Let the poor say, “I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us!” (repeat)
Give thanks. Give thanks.
Dedication Prayer:
Beloved God, we thank you for the gift of your presence in our lives. We are grateful that we can give of our time, talent, and treasure. May they be blessed and multiplied to hasten the day when all creation lives in peace. Amen.
Listening for God
Revelation 1:4-8
John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him,even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Matthew 6:25-33
“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Message: I am
Meditation in Music
Announcement Reminder
Our Light moves into the World God Loves
*Closing Hymn “Let All Things Now Living” 389 Family of God
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving to God the Creator triumphantly raise, who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us, who guideth us on to the end of our days. God’s banners are o’er us, God’s light goes before us, a pillar of fire shining forth in the night,‘til shadows have vanished and darkness is banished, as forward we travel from light into light.
God’s law God enforces: the stars in their courses, the sun in God’s orbit, obediently shine; the hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains, the deeps of the ocean proclaim God divine, we too should be voicing our love and rejoicing, with glad adoration a song let us raise,‘til all things now living unite in thanksgiving to God in the highest, hosanna and praise.
Benediction
Communal Blessing
Be Yourself.
Grow in Christ.
Live with Compassion
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