Update about Onsite and Online Worship

Thank you for your patience and support all year long. We have now been in isolation for almost exactly one year. It has tested our fortitude, our endurance, and our compassion. Many ministries have had to shift, pause, or pivot. Despite the hardship, loneliness, and angst, God has been faithful to us. He always is.

We are nearing being able to gather safely onsite. We are prepared and ready for when that time comes. I am so grateful to the staff and elders for their tremendous support and hard work to ensure onsite worship will be safe and meaningful.

In the coming weeks, whether you find yourself worshiping onsite or online, worship Jesus with vigor, intention, and joy. Let us worship the good shepherd!

Call to Worship

Song – Psalm 23 by the Georgia Boy Choir

Scripture Reading – Psalm 121:7-8

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

Prayer of the People by Rev. Richard Fairchild

Lord God, Jesus said that he came to that we might life and have it abundantly. We praise you and we thank you for his purpose in coming and we pray to you that we might indeed experience the fullness of the life that he has promised. Take from us, O Lord, all those things that get in the way of our relationship with you—our pride and self-certainty, our doubt and our fear, and all those things that come from our human nature that blind us to the wonders of your presence and the glory of what you are doing in our midst….. Lord, hear our prayer….

Lord, you know very well how our traditions and our understandings can become instruments of judgment rather than tools of your grace. We pray today O God for all those who have been hurt by our thoughtless insistence that our particular way is the only right way. Touch the hearts of those who have turned away from you because we have caused your light within us to grow dim and brighten, we pray, our souls….. Lord, hear our prayer….

Lord, we thank you for the refreshing wind of your Spirit—for how you breathe into us new life and new hope and lead us to new understandings. In you we find wholeness for both body and soul. We pray now, O God, that this wholeness may not only not only grow within us—but that it might enter into and transform the lives of those whom we name before you at this time. We lift them up, O Lord, and also we lift up those situations and those persons, in thanksgiving, and with prayers of intercession, that you have placed upon our hearts this day…

We pray all these things, O God, in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior, our brother and our friend. Amen.

Scripture Reading – John 10:1-15

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Video Sermon

Song – Good Good Father

Prayer by Rev. Abi

O Lord, our Shepherding God,
come close to us now
Come near us in our time of need.

Shepherding God,
we need you in our time of anxiety.
We need you in our time of economic uncertainty.
We need you in a time of a globe-trotting disease.
We need you to bind our wounds,
and pour your healing ointment on our heads .
We need the briars, and brambles, and burrs
pulled out of our fleece and skin.

Shepherding God.
you guide us with your voice,
Help us to listen and follow no matter where your voice leads.
Help us to trust you.

Shepherding God,
protect us from the hired hands
that do not really care for us
and have neglected or abused us in the past.

Shepherding God,
thank you for your son
who lay down his life for those who follow him
and for those who are not in the fold yet..

Lord we pray for those who don’t know the shepherd,
whose life circumstances kept them from knowing the good shepherd.
We pray that by our actions, our behavior,
and our reaching out into the community,
they may come to know you.

Shepherding God,
renew us, guide us with your love
and renew us with your peace. Amen