Worship Resources for
the Center for Faith and Giving
Pentecost +13
The Center for Faith and Giving will undergo a change in leadership this month as Bruce Barkhauer retires after over 14 years of leading the work of generosity for the Disciples of Christ. You can learn more about our new director, Melissa St Clair here. If you are interested in making a gift to the Fund for Generosity in honor of Bruce’s ministry, you can learn about it here.
As always, you can support the work of this ministry by following this link: donate
Call to Worship (inspired by Psalm 111)
One: Join me as we lift our voices, offering praise to God!
Many: (singing) “Praise Ye the Lord, Alleluia (x3)
Praise Ye the Lord!”
One: We give thanks to God with whole-hearted joy!
Many: Together, we give thanks because God’s works are GREAT!
One: Not only that, but God is gracious and merciful.
Many: So we offer God our praise as we lift our voices in prayer.
Opening Prayer (unison)
God, we give you thanks for your covenant love which binds us to you and to one another in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, whom we know as the Christ.
We’re grateful, as we gather, for the abundant gifts you continue to pour on your people.
May your Spirit help us recognize you are faithful and just. Wrap us close to you as we offer our minds, our hearts and our spirits to you in our worship today. AMEN
Moment for Stewardship
In the letter to the Ephesians, believers are instructed how to live:
“not as unwise people but as wise.”
Sometimes, it takes the wisdom of a child for us to grasp how to live as faithful stewards of all we’ve been given.
The story is told of a little boy in church for the first time, who watched as the ushers passed around offering plates. When they came near his pew, the boy said loudly, “Don’t pay for me, Daddy, I’m only five.”
Gratefully, in this place, we don’t pay on the basis of being members of a club or observers at a concert or ball game. Instead, we share from the abundance God has already provided for us. When we listen to those who are truly wise, child or adult, we’re able to recognize so many of the true gifts we’ve been given — the air we breathe, the food we eat, the love which surrounds us.
Our natural response becomes one of gratitude.
So this morning, in true appreciation for the gifts we’ve been given, no matter what our age may be, let’s offer our tithes and gifts to God.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Remembering how Jesus invited his followers to love one another,
we offer these gifts as signs of our love for our sisters and brothers.
Because we have received much from your bounty, God, we ask you now
to accept these gifts,
to multiply them and allow us to use them
so your presence will be known more fully
in this congregation,
in our community,
and in your whole cosmos. AMEN
Invitation to Communion
Sometimes it is not the amount of food, but it is the particular food
which entices us to come to a dinner table.
Here, we know this table holds only simple bread and small servings of juice.
Yet it’s enough to draw us close,
for this meal connects us to an Upper Room,
to Jesus and his disciples,
to the Spirit at work,
translating ordinary elements into extraordinary nourishment.
How right, that this meal is accompanied by psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. It’s a weekly Thanksgiving meal (sometimes called “the eucharist”.)
When we grasp that truth, we do give thanks to God,
with joy in our hearts and a song of gratitude on our lips.
The Spirit continues to bring us into harmony with one another
and with all that is Holy
as we share this festive meal.
Let’s lift our voices to sing “Alleluia! Hear God’s Story” (CH 330)