Bulletin – Sunday, September 21, 2025 – Third Sunday of Creation

Sunday, September 21, 2025
Third Sunday of Creation

We Gather as People of Faith

Welcome

Announcements

Minute Person(s)

Lighting the Christ Candle

We light the Christ Candle this morning to acknowledge the presence of the spirit alive and burning bright in our hearts and in the life of our community. This flame signifies the love of God that welcomes us to be nurtured and fed spiritually that we too may be a light for the world.

Call to Worship

Oh God of compassion, we come together in faith and trust to honor you. We gather in hope to receive the gifts the Holy Spirit poured down upon us. We open our hearts to the living Christ’s wisdom spiraling through us like strong winds. Even as the sun and the moon rise and set every day and night, we come faithfully to worship you O God, Creator of all this sacred earth, our home. Let us Worship you now.

Hymn – “Sing praise to God, Who Reigns Above” (VU #216)

Sing praise to God, who reigns above, the God of all creation,
The God of power, the God of love, the God of our salvation;
With healing balm my soul is filled, and every faithless murmur stilled;
To God all praise and glory!

What God’s almighty power hath made, God’s gracious mercy keepeth;
By morning glow or evening shade God’s watchful eye ne’er sleepeth;
Within the shelter of God’s might, Lo! all is just and all is right;
To God all praise and glory!

Our God is never far away, but through all grief distressing,
An ever present help and stay, our peace, and joy, and blessing;
As with a mother’s tender hand, God gently leads the chosen band;
To God all praise and glory!

Thus all my gladsome way along, I sing aloud they praises
That all may hear the grateful song my voice unwearied raises.
Be joyful in your God, my heart! Both soul and body take your part;
To God all praise and Glory!

Prayer of Approach and Confession

One:   In the silence of our humble hearts and with the wisdom of our minds let us remember all that we have said and all we have forgotten to say that might have wounded others. For our disrespect and dismissiveness of the needs of others.
All:      Oh Loving God we seek your mercy

One:   When complacent in the face of hatred to others, while systemic barriers, cause others to be blocked from reaching their true potential and equity. For times we turned away in ignorance and remained silent in fear.
All:      Oh Loving God we seek your forgiveness

One:   When we feel helpless. When life throws us insurmountable challenges, when we doubt you can lift us up out of the rising tides and turbulent waters. For the tears we shed for all that are alone, displaced, and afraid.
All:      Oh Loving God we seek your love and wisdom.

Words of Assurance

God is our faithful companion, who weeps with us when we are overwhelmed and unsure, our hearts are touched. God is our comfort and peace who rejoices with us when joy surrounds us. Oh God of peace, we remember you in laughter and wonder and we thank you for being with us during times of darkness and turmoil. Oh most loving God, you called us into relationship with you today and always, that we may know we are not alone. Thanks be to God.

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

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me,
Spirt 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.

A Story for All

We Hear God’s Word

Scripture Reading:    Isaiah 43:14-21

¹⁴ This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians, in the ships in which they took pride. ¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator, your King.”

¹⁶ This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, ¹⁷ who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: ¹⁸ “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. ¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. ²⁰ The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, ²¹  the people I formed for myself  that they may proclaim my praise.

Scripture Reading:    Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

¹⁸ You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. ¹⁹ Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they aroused my anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?”

²⁰ “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.”

²¹ Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. ²² Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?

¹ Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.

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

Hymn “O Jesus, Think on Me” (VU #607)

O Jesus, think on me and purge away my sin;
From selfish passions set me free and make me pure within.

O Jesus, think on me, be anxious throughs oppressed;
Let me your loving servant be and taste your promised rest.

O Jesus, think on me, nor let me go astray;
Through darkness and perplexity point out your chosen way.

O Jesus, think on me, that, when the flood is past,
I may the eternal brightness see and share your joy at last.

Sermon:                    God weeps with us, We are not alone

Anthem “Abundant Life”

We cannot own the sunlit sky, the moon, the wildflowers growing,
For we are part of all that is within life’s river flowing.
With open hands receive and share the gifts of God’s creation,
That all may have abundant life in every earthly nation.

When children have no bread but tears, and fond hopes die a-borning,
When bodies shiver in the night and weary, wait for morning,
God calls humanity to wake, to join in common Labour,
That all may have abundant life in oneness with their neighbour.

God calls humanity to join as partners in creating
A world that’s free from want and fear, life’s goodness celebrating,
That world, it beckons bright and fair, invites our gifts, our labour,
That all may have abundant life in oneness with their neighbour.

Song of Faith

One:   Made in the image of God, we yearn for the fulfillment that is life in God. Yet we choose to turn away from God. We surrender ourselves to sin, a disposition revealed in selfishness, cowardice, or apathy. Becoming bound and complacent in a web of false desires and wrong choices, we bring harm to ourselves and others.

All:      This brokenness in human life and community is an outcome of sin. Sin is not only personal but accumulates to become habitual and systemic forms of injustice, violence, and hatred.

One:   We are all touched by this brokenness; the rise of selfish individualism that erodes human solidarity, the Concentration of wealth and power without regard of the needs of all;

All:      We sing lament and repentance.

One:   We sing of God’s good news lived out, a church with purpose: faith nurtured and hearts comforted, gifts shared for the good of all, resistance of the forces that exploit and marginalize, fierce love in the face of violence, human dignity defended, members of a community held and inspired by God, corrected and comforted, instrument of the loving Spirit of Christ, creations, mending.

All:      We sing of God’s mission

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

God of abundance, bless our commitments. Let our gifts of love multiply and shower the world. Let us be each other’s encouragement and building up.

(Adapted from Pray Whitney Bruno, Little Current, ON)

Prayers of the People

One:   God who sees our suffering and is with us
Sung Response “Psalm 77” (VU #791)
God, bend your ear and hear my prayer.

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 – “Touch the Earth Lightly” (VU #307))

Touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently,
Nourish the life of the world in our care:
Gift of great wonder, ours to surrender,
Trust for the children tomorrow will bear.

We who endanger, who create hunger,
Agents of death for all creatures that live,
We who would foster clouds and disaster,
God of our planet, forestall and forgive!

Let there be greening, birth from the burning,
Water that blesses and air that is sweet,
Health in God’s garden, hope in God’s children,
Regeneration that peace will complete.

God of all living, God of all loving,
God of the seedling, the snow and the sun,
Teach us, deflect us, Christ reconnect us,
Using us gently and making us one.

Commissioning

And now may the river of God, flowing generously in us and through us, be our guide on our journey. May we all be blessed on our way, bringing refreshment to everyone we meet. May we be full of the river of God every moment of our lives.

Benediction

May the tears of a God who loves us as God’s very self cleanse and heal us in times of trouble. Let the spirit of the risen Christ lead us in our comings and goings and may the wisdom of the Holy Spirit poured out on all creation, fill our hearts and minds, that we be a light for the world and all we meet. 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.