Bulletin – September 7, 2025

Sunday, September 7, 2025
First Sunday of Creation

We Gather as People of Faith

Welcome

Minute Person(s)

Announcements

Lighting the Christ Candle

We light the Christ Candle to remind us that everyone is welcome here; just as we are. We are made in the image of God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Call to Worship

One:   We come here to be moulded by the Potter’s Hands.
All:      Opening our hearts to be transformed by God’s love.

One:   We offer ourselves, our fears, our lives, to the Ever present One.
All:      We come to worship God the Maker of all.

One:   This is the day that the Lord has made.
All:      Let us rejoice and be glad.

One:   After six days work, God rested.
All:      Therefore, today shall remain holy.

One:   God invites us to behold the Sabbath.
All:      We come together here to worship and seek refuge.

One:   God offers this sacred space for all.
All:      Here we find a seat at Christ’s table prepared for us. Let us be together as the body of Christ for the world today. Amen.

(Adapted from Call to Worship Prayer, The Gathering, Aaron Palmer and Richard Bott)

Hymn – “What is the Place”

What is the place where we are meeting?
Only a house, the earth its floor,
Walls and a roof sheltering people,
Windows for light, an open door.
Yet it becomes a body that lives when we are gathered here,
And know our God is near.

Words from afar, stars that are falling,
Sparks that are sown in us like seed,
Names for our God, dreams, signs and wonders
Sent from the past are what we need.
We in this place remember and speak again what we have heard:
God’s free redeeming word.

And we accept bread at this table,
Broken and shared, a living sign.
Here in this world, dying and living,
We are each other’s bread and wine.
This is the place where we can receive what we need to increase
God’s justice and God’s peace.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

One:   O Great Source of Love, We long to share your love with the world, but sometimes we forget that your love is for everyone even those that have wounded us, even those we have wounded.
All:      O God, forgive us when we forget to make choices that reflect your love for all your sacred creation.

One:   O Great Creator, we sense and we experience the power of all Creation. We are blessed by its majesty, but sometimes we forget to be good water protectors and land defenders.
All:      O God, forgive us when we forget to make choices that reflect your love for all your sacred creation.

One:   O Eternal Spirit, we want to follow the Jesus Way. We sometimes forget to pay attention to your presence in our lives, Our actions may not reflect our best selves and our inaction may allow harm to others.
All:      O God, forgive us when we forget to make choices that reflect your love for all your sacred creation.

Words of Assurance

One:   The unknown God, in whom we live and breathe and have our being, has promised to be found by all who seek with hearts that yearn
All:      To know and to be known is a gift.

One:   God of Mystery, God of eager joy, already but not yet touched, closer than breath itself drawing from us in stillness and in trust.
All:      Oh God our wonder we await you?

One:   And our need. in dusky darkness before the glowing dawn, embedded in simple dust,
All:      Behold in us a shining seed. Amen.

Sung Response – “Spirit of the Living God” (Voices United #376 verse 1)

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Times for All Ages

We Hear God’s Word

Scripture Reading:    Psalm 139

One:   ¹ O Eternal One, You have explored my heart and know exactly who I am; ² You even know the small details like when I take a seat and when I stand up again. Even when I am far away, You know what I’m thinking.
All:      ³ You observe my wanderings and my sleeping, my waking and my dreaming, and You know everything I do in more detail than even I know.

One:   ⁴ You know what I’m going to say long before I say it. It is true Eternal One, that You know everything and everyone. ⁵ You have surrounded me on every side, behind me and before me, and You have placed Your hand gently on my shoulder.
All:      ⁶ It is the most amazing feeling to know how deeply You know me, inside and out; the realization of it is so great that I cannot comprehend it.

One:   ⁷ Can I go anywhere apart from Your Spirit? Is there anywhere I can go to escape Your watchful presence?
All:      ⁸ If I go up into heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in the realm of the dead, You are there.

One:   ⁹ If I ride on the wings of morning, if I make my home in the most isolated part of the ocean,
All:      ¹⁰ Even then You will be there to guide me; Your right hand will embrace me, for You are always there.

One:   ¹¹ Even if I am afraid and think to myself, “There is no doubt that the darkness will swallow me, the light around me will soon be turned to night,”
All:      ¹² You can see in the dark, for it is not dark to Your eyes. For You the night is just as bright as the day. Darkness and light are the same to Your eyes.

One:   ¹³ For You shaped me, inside and out. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath.
All:      ¹⁴ I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe. You have approached even the smallest details with excellence; Your works are wonderful; I carry this knowledge deep within my soul.

One:   ¹⁵ You see all things; nothing about me was hidden from You As I took shape in secret, carefully crafted in the heart of the earth before I was born from its womb.
All:      ¹⁶ You see all things; You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb; Every detail of my life was already written in Your book; You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.

One:   ¹⁷ Your thoughts and plans are treasures to me, O God! I cherish each and every one of them! How grand in scope! How many in number!
All:      ¹⁸ If I could count each one of them, they would be more than all the grains of sand on earth. Their number is inconceivable! Even when I wake up, I am still near to You.

One:   ¹⁹ I wish You would destroy all the wicked, O God. So keep away from me, those who are thirsty for blood!
All:      ²⁰ For they say such horrible things about You, and those who are against You abuse Your good name.

One:   ²¹ Is it not true that I hate all who hate You, Eternal One? Is it not true that I despise all who come against You?
All:      ²² Deep hatred boils within me toward them; I am Your friend, and they are my enemies.

One:   ²³ Explore me, O God, and know the real me. Dig deeply and discover who I am. Put me to the test and watch how I handle the strain.
All:      ²⁴ Examine me to see if there is an evil bone in me, and guide me down Your path forever.

Scripture Reading:    Jeremiah 18:1-11

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you, my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

⁵ Then the word of the Lord came to me. ⁶ He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. ⁷ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, ⁸ and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. ⁹ And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, ¹⁰ and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

¹¹ “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’

May God speak to us through these readings of scripture.
Thanks be to God!

Sermon: “God Knows Us and Seeks Us Out Even in Exile”

Solo “You’ve Searched Me, God, You Know Me”

You’ve searched me God, You know me,
You know when I sit, when I rise up to go,
You gentle Your hand on my heart, You are Holy,
The seeds of my life You have sown.
My heart will sing and rejoice,
Know the wonder of Your Grace,
I will rest in the palm of Your hand.

Before a word was spoken,
Before all the hurt, all the shattering of dreams,
Before all the longing, Great Healer, You held me,
The days of my life, You have seen.
My heart will sing and rejoice,
Know the wonder of Your Grace,
I will rest in the palm of Your hand.

The wings of dawn are rising,
I fly to the shores of a sea far away,
Yet there You will find me, my solace, my comfort,
You guide me in all of Your ways.
My heart will sing and rejoice,
Know the wonder of Your Grace,
I will rest in the palm of Your hand.

O Holy One, Creator,
O You who have gathered me in from the cold,
My life it was woven together, forever,
In Love where all things are made whole.
My heart will sing and rejoice,
Know the wonder of Your Grace,
I will rest in the palm of Your hand.

Song of Faith

One:   In Love, The one eternal God seeks relationship. So God creates the universe and with it the possibility of being and relating. God tends the universe, Mending the broken and reconciling the estranged. God enlivens the universe, Guiding all thigs toward harmony with their Source.
All:      Grateful for God’s loving action, We cannot keep from singing.

One:   With the Church through the ages, We speak of God as one and triune; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We also speak of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer God, Christ, and Spirit Mother, Friend, and Comforter Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love,
All:      And in other ways that speak faithfully of The One on whom our hearts rely, The fully shared life at the heart of the universe. Amen

Sung Response (Voices United #969)

Amen, Amen, Amen.

We Respond to God’s Word

Invitation to Share

Offering Sung Response – “For the Gift of Creation” (Voices United #538)”

For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
And the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
We thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.

Offering Prayer

Creator God, we, willingly and with open arms offer these gifts to you. We ask that you guide our thoughts, We implore your Spirit to transform our hearts that we might use these gifts wisely for the wellbeing of all your people. Amen.

Prayers of the People

One:   God hear our prayers
All:      All Creation sings your praise

Passing of the Peace

The Prayer Jesus Taught Us:

One:   Please join me in praying as Jesus taught us: Our creator who is like
All:      Our Mother and our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now ever and forever. Amen.

We Go Into God’s World

Hymn – “I was There to Hear Your Borning Cry” (Voices United #644)

I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.

I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well,
In a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.

When you heard the wonder of the word, I was there to cheer you on;
You were raised to praise the living Lord, to whom you now belong.

If you find someone to share your time and you join your hearts as one,
I’ll be there to make you verses rhyme from dusk till rising sun.

In the middle ages of your life, not too old, no longer young,
I’ll be there to guide you through the night, complete what I’ve begun.

When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise.

I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.

Commissioning

And now may the hand of God, molding and recreating us be our guide on this journey blessing us and directing us on our way, renewing us and the face of this earth. May we turn in confidence to God in times of need and be thankful in moments of joy. May we be ever more attuned to the grace, mercy, and love of God within and all around us.

Benediction

Go now with the peace and power of love of God that embodies us let us walk out into the world, confident that the risen Christ gives us courage and strength, to be all we are meant to be and do in the world. And let us open our arms and hearts wide to the power of the Holy Spirit that guides us as we listen and follow God’s direction for us nNow and forever. Amen.

Sung Response – “Send Us Out”

Send us out in the power of Your Spirit, Lord,
May our lives bring Jesus to the world.
May each thought and word bring glory to Your name,
Send us out in Your Spirit, Lord, we pray.