Sherri Sinders – quilt, Linda Ediger – banner, Sara Stucky – painting, David Toews – ceramic turtle, Pastor Rose Marie – poetry book, Randall Kaufman – cross, altar display – Nancy Krehbiel & Kathy Sawatzky
Prayer for Peace & Lighting of Peace Candle
Helene McLeod, England Timeless Prayers for Peace
Enfolded in your love, O mother God, may we be freed from fears we dare not name or face; may we release the tears that we hold back in case our hearts will drown in grief for past or future sorrow, and in your arms may we find peace and strength to live each precious day; there may be no tomorrow. You made us to be loved and loving; though it hurts when we reject your love, you love us still. Your arms outstretched ache to embrace and hold us while you whisper: all is well; fear not, all shall be well. All we need do is to take the gift of love and grace you offer, and lay our head upon your shoulder, let go of all that frightens and confuses and lose our fear and find deep peace in your enfolding, loving God, our Mother.
Call to Worship
Come together, everyone and bring your stories and sing your songs and share in the Spirit. Let your feelings paint the sky like a rainbow of banners and ballrooms. Let your thoughts fill the air and come to life in bodies of sounds ringing out like a song to which the whole world will be dancing. And let even the silence speak with a thousand voices in tribute to our loving, living God and in celebration of our lives – the priceless gift God has given us. –John W. Howell
Reprinted by permission of the publishers from Touch Holiness, ed. Ruth C. Duck and Maren C. Tirabassi. ©1990 by The Pilgram Press.
Opening Hymn When in our music, God is glorified HWB 44
Sharing and Prayer (see top of sermon)
Offering Prayer
God of the Fertile Fields HWB 390
Children’s Story – “The Art of Biblical Poetry”
Scripture Psalm 139:1-18
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
Sermon “Spirituality through the written word” – Pastor Rose Marie (see attachment)