Bulletin – Sunday, November 23, 2025 – Reign of Christ Sunday

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Reign of Christ Sunday

We Gather as People of Faith

Welcome

Announcements

Minute Person(s)

Lighting the Christ Candle

We light this candle today as a symbol of the hope we place in the power of the Risen Christ. Jesus showed us how to walk the path of peace and how to be peacemakers in the world today. This candle’s warmth reminds us to open our hearts as Jesus did to all he encountered. That we may truly be a community of faith for the world today. And that all are welcome here just as you are.

Call to Worship

As a people of God joined with one another in love we are called to be the Church…to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. Let us join our hearts and minds together to rejoice in the gift of faith, in the reconciling God of love, mercy, justice, and peace. Let us celebrate the power of the holy spirit acting through us in the world today and rejoice and be glad in it.

Please join in the singing of the hymn – “Sing Your Praise to God Eternal” (Voices United #2441)

Sing your praise to God eternal, sing you praise to God the Son,
Sing your praise to God the Spirit, living and forever One.
God has made us, God has blessed us, God has called us to be true.
God rules over all creation, daily making all things new.

Join the praise of every creature, sing with singing birds at dawn;
When the stars shine forth at nightfall, hear their heavenly antiphon.
Praise for God for the light of summer, autumn glories, winter snows,
For the coming of the springtime and the life of all that grows.

Praise God on our days of gladness for the summons to rejoice;
Praise God in our times of sadness for the calm, consoling voice.
God our Maker strong and loving, Christ our Saviour, Leader, Lord,
Living God, Creator Spirit, be your holy name adored!

Prayer of Approach and Confession

Oh God, We live and breathe together in community to bring hope and comfort to one another and to a world in need of your redemption. At times our own brokenness, fears, weariness, and obstacles keep us from knowing your love. We are prevented from acting in ways that bring us and this world to wholeness and healing. We call on you to forgive us and pour out your mercy upon us. Help us heal as your body of Christ on earth that we may find strength and wisdom to be a light for the world today in the ways you call us to be.

Words of Assurance

God created the abundant world and all that is in it that we may live as a whole and healthy people respecting each other’s difference, rejoicing in the beauty of all of Creation. God acts in our lives. God loves us. God cares for us. God forgives us. God calls us to support and love one another that we too will live the reconciling power of the risen Christ. Thanks be to God here among us now and always. Amen.

Sung Response – “Come and Fill Our Hearts” (More Voices #16)

Come and fill our hearts with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come and fill our hearts with your peace,
Alleluia

A Time for All Ages

We Hear God’s Word

Please join in the singing of the hymn “O Christ What Can it Mean for Us”

O Christ, what can it mean for us to claim you as our king?
What royal face have you revealed whose praise the church would sing?
Aspiring not to glory’s height, to power, wealth, and fame,
You walked a different, lowly way, another’s will your aim.

You came, the image of our God, to heal and to forgive,
To shed your blood for sinners’ sale that we might rise and live.
To break the law of death you came, the law of love to bring:
A different rule of righteousness, a different kind of king.

Though some would make their greatness felt and lord it over all,
You said the first must be the last and service be our call.
O Christ, in workplace, church, and home, let none to power cling;
For still, through us, you come to serve, a different king of king.

You chose a humble human form and shunned the world’s renown;
You died for us upon a cross with thorns Your only crown.
But still, beyond the span of years, our glad hosannas ring,
For now at God’s right hand You reign, a different kind of king!

Scripture Reading: Psalm 46

¹ God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. ² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most-High dwells. ⁵ God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. ⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; God’s voice is lifted, the earth melts.

⁷ The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

⁸ Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations God brings on the earth. ⁹ He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. ¹⁰ God says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

¹¹ The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Gospel Reading:     Luke 1:67-79

⁶⁷ His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: ⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. ⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), ⁷¹ salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us— ⁷² to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath he swore to our father Abraham: ⁷⁴ to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶ And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, ⁷⁷ to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven ⁷⁹ to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

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

Sermon “The Wisdom Way: The Path of Peace”

Anthem “Come Christians, Join to Sing”

Come, Christians, join to sing
Alleluia! Amen!
Praise to our Servant King;
Alleluia! Amen!
Let all with heart and voice
Saved by God’s gracious choice;
Now in this place rejoice;
Alleluia! Amen!

Come, lift your hearts on high;
Alleluia! Amen!
Let praises fill the sky;
Alleluia! Amen!
Christ calls His people friends,
The helpless He defends.
His love shall never end:
Alleluia! Amen!

Praise Christ, the Lord, again;
Alleluia! Amen!
Raise high the joyous strain;
Alleluia! Amen!
The whole creation o’er,
Let all God’s love adore,
Singing forevermore,
Alleluia! Amen!

Come, Christians, join to sing!

The New Creed: Please join together as one voice in praying the New Creed to Our God and Creator.

We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.

We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.

We trust in God.

We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.

Sung Response – “Amen, Amen, Amen” (Voices United #969)

Amen, amen, amen.

We Respond to God’s Word

Invitation to Share

Offering Sung Response – “Grant Us, God, the Grace of Giving” (Voices United #540)

Grant Us, God, the Grace of Giving,
With a spirit large and free,
That ourselves and all our living
We may offer faithfully.

Offering Prayer

Looking back on this liturgical year as it closes, we thank you Oh Creator for being with us in times of joy and celebration and holding us closer in the periods of darkness, loss, and suffering through the offering of these gifts we commit ourselves to being your light in the world In service of your glorious creation and all its inhabitants. Amen.

Prayers of the People

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 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. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now ever and forever. Amen.

We Go Into God’s World

Please join in the singing of the hymn – “From This Holy Time”

From this holy time, from this sacred space,
We go now to serve our own day and place,
Committed to follow the way Jesus trod:
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

He lives in our midst, through gone from our sight,
Baptized in his name, we walk in his light;
We treasure his presence, example and word:
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

Let this be our life, till Christ comes again –
To love as he loves and work for God’s reign,
This song in our hearts and this sign on our road:
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

Commissioning

Let us go out into the world as a reconciling and forgiving people aligned with the spirit of the Risen Christ like the prophets of old and the sages reborn in our time, let our feet be guided on the path of peace and our actions show the tender mercy and love of God in Christ so that the sun will shine from heaven and a light of hope and the promise of just of all God’s people.

Benediction

God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help and comfort in the times of joy and in the darkness of struggles. let us rejoice in this and be glad. Christ is the light that shines hope into our hearts and throughout the world. Let us marvel and respect the majesty of God’s hand poured out in all of Creation. The Holy Spirit is alive within our hearts joining us together as God’s people. Let us be guided by her wisdom this week and in all the days of our lives. Amen.

Sung Response – “Amen, Amen, Amen” (Voices United #967)

Amen, amen, amen.