ORDER OF WORSHIP | Holy Trinity Community Church

09/20/20 - ORDER OF WORSHIP

Welcome to

Holy Trinity Community

United Church of Christ!

Thank you for joining us in worship today.

We invite you to reach out to Pastor Rob, (He/Him), who is available for pastoral care, emotional support, & spiritual direction. Please contact them at revrobvaness@gmail.com with any comments or concerns you may have.

Today is the 2nd in an 11-week series on the promises of God. We will look at God’s promise to Abram and consider what that means for us today.

Color code to help you navigate our worship:

Worship Notes in BLUE. Music Notes in RED.

1. Feel free to comment in the live thread to introduce yourself & to connect with one another.

2. There will be 3 occasions where we invite you to comment during our live premiere.

- The 1st is during our time in prayer. Enter your prayer requests & praises in the comment section & Pastor Rob will hold your prayers with theirs for the rest of the week.

- The 2nd second time is during our celebration of communion. You are invited to join us in celebrating Communion.

- Right now, go & gather something to eat & something to drink. If can be bread or something else, & wine or juice or something else, & set it aside.

- When the time comes for us to share in the bread of life & the cup of blessing, do not worry, I will walk you through it.

3. Finally, we offer a special blessing at the end of service. If you have a birthday or an anniversary or another significant life event you would like to receive a blessing for, know that you are blessed. If you want to share the reason for your blessing you are invited to comment.

- Together we will share in the eternal & steadfast love of God revealed for all through the life, death, & resurrection of a man named Jesus.

Holy Trinity Community United Church of Christ

CCLI — Christian Copyright & Video Licensing International: CCLI#1706785; CVLI#503770919

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GREETING

✠ SONG OF PRAISE

This is How We Overcome with Charlie Hawks and Voices of Vision

Your light broke through my night
Restored exceeding joy
Your grace fell like the rain
And made this desert live

You have turned my mourning into dancing
You have turned my sorrow into joy

Your hand lifted me up
I stand on higher ground
Your praise rose in my heart
And made this valley sing

You have turned my mourning into dancing
You have turned my sorrow into joy
You have turned my mourning into dancing
You have turned my sorrow into joy

This is how we overcome
This is how we overcome
This is how we overcome
This is how we overcome

You have turned my mourning into dancing
You have turned my sorrow into joy
You have turned my mourning into dancing
You have turned my sorrow into joy

✠ WELCOME

✠ SCRIPTURE READING: Genesis 15: 1-6

You are invited to stand as you are able while worshipping with us in your own home.

One: Sitting or standing, hear now a reading from the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Testament as we meditate on the promise for a future we cannot see & yet must believe in order to receive.

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." 2 But Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." 4 But the word of the Lord came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." 5 He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." 6 And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

One: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

All: Thanks be to God!

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Sermon inspirations:

"When you don't have your identity in the kingdom of God you start to look for smaller kingdoms." – Richard Rohr.

“There is no greater power in Heaven or on Earth than pure, unconditional love. The nature of the God force, the unseen intelligence in all things, which causes the material world and is the center of both the spiritual and physical plane, is best described as pure, unconditional love.” – “Wayne Dyer

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” - Vincent Van Gogh

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” - William Shakespeare

“Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.” - Gustave Flaubert

“When you come upon a path that brings benefit and happiness to all, follow this course as the moon

journeys through the stars.” - Gautama Buddha

✠ Sermon: The Promise of a Future You Can Not See

[2nd in a series on the promises of God.]

✠ PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

As we enter this time of prayer, we invite you to post your prayers in the comments below, while also being mindful that this is a public forum and any confidentiality you are bound to honor. Doing so, we will add them to our prayer list & pray over them in the week to come.

✠ OUR OFFERING

You can help the church financially in this pandemic by contributing in 3 different ways. Holy Trinity Memphis has a cash app account, you can go to our website, holytrinitymemphis.org, or you can send a gift to our PO Box. All the information is pinned to the top of the comment thread for this lives stream.

1. Holy Trinity Community Church now has a CashApp account. Our CashApp code is $HolyTrinityMemphis. Users must create a Cash App account to make contributions to our ministry. There is no fee for either party on this app & can be found at the Google Play Store for Android users or the App Store for iPhone users.

2. Go to HolyTrinityMemphis.org & click on the word GIVE in the upper left-hand corner. This link will direct you to our longstanding PayPal account.

3. Finally, you can always send in your tithe, gift, or offering by mail. Please send to: Holy Trinity Community Church PO Box 2991 Cordova, TN 38088.

Your faithful contributions regardless of if you can join us in worship are essential for our ability to proclaim the gospel. Thank you for your generous support of our mission and ministries.

✠ OFFERTORY HYMN

Halleluiah, Your Love is Amazing with Charlie Hawks

Your love is amazing

Steady and unchanging

Your love is a mountain

Firm beneath my feet

Your love is a mystery

How You gently lift me

When I am surrounded

Your love carries me

Your love is surprising

I can feel it rising

All the joy that's growing

Deep inside of me

And every time I see you

All your goodness shines through

And I can feel this God song rising up in me

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your love makes me sing

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your love makes me sing

Your love is surprising

I can feel it rising

All the joy that's growing

Deep inside of me

And every time I see you

All your goodness shines through

And I can feel this God song rising up in me

✠ HOLY COMMUNION [i]

Invitation

One: For Holy Communion this morning, I invite you to lend Christ your table.

On the first day of the last week of Jesus’s life, people throughout Judea arrived at the dusty gates of Jerusalem, primed with “Hosanna” in their hearts and Jesus asked to borrow a donkey.

On the Thursday that followed, Jesus rented or was given John Mark’s mother’s Upper Room to celebrate the Passover with the disciples.

On the afternoon of the resurrection, Jesus was invited into a house in Emmaus and used the bread of that hospitality to break and bless.

Lend Christ your table, your bread, your cup and your heart, for, as the disciples told the person who loaned the donkey, “The Lord has need of it.”

Prayer of Consecration

One: We are one bread, one body, one cup of blessing. Though we are many throughout the earth and this church community is scattered, we are one in Christ. In your many kitchens, and living rooms, rest your hands lightly upon these elements which we set aside today to be a sacrament. Let us ask God’s blessing upon them.

All: Gentle Redeemer, there is no lockdown on your blessing

and no quarantine on grace.

Send your Spirit of life and love,

power and blessing

upon every table where your child shelters in place,

that this Bread may be broken and gathered in love

and this Cup poured out to give hope to all.

Risen Christ, live in us, that we may live in you.

Breathe in us, that we may breathe in you.

Words of Remembering

One: We remember that Paul the apostle wrote letters to congregations throughout places we now call Greece, Turkey and Macedonia, and they were the first “remote” worship resources. Our online service has a long heritage. The Communion words sent to the church at Corinth were these:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,

the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed

took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks,

he broke it and said,

“This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying,

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Sharing of the Elements

One: Let us in our many places receive the gift of God, the Bread of Heaven.

All: We are one in Christ in the bread we share.

One: Let us eat.

One: Let us in our many places receive the gift of God, the Cup of Blessing.

All: We are one in Christ in the cup we share.

One: Let us drink.

One: Let us pray as our Risen Savior taught us in the gospel of Matthew:

All: Our Father, who are 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, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

One: Let us pray in thanksgiving for this meal of grace, rejoicing that, by the very

method of our worship, we have embodied the truth that Christ’s love is not limited by buildings made with human hands, nor contained in human ceremonies, but blows as free as the Spirit in all places.

All: Spirit of Christ, you have blessed our tables and our lives.

May the eating of this Bread give us courage to speak faith and act love,

not only in church sanctuaries, but in your precious world,

and may the drinking of this Cup renew our hope

even in the midst of pandemic.

Wrap your hopeful presence around all

whose bodies, spirits and hearts need healing,

and let us become your compassion and safe refuge. Amen

✠ CELEBRATIONS & A SPECIAL BLESSING

Now is the time for you to enter your reason for being blessed into the comment section so that we may share in your life’s journey.

One: Today we praise God for our birthdays and anniversaries and all the good things that come into our lives not by our power but by God’s power and providence.

Let your faith vanquish your fears for fear is only a state of the mind, keep reaching for the best in all you do.

Each day is like a gift, a blessing to your life. Live each day of your life like the blessing it is.

I hope you believe in miracles because a whole lot of them will come to you sooner than you expect. Keep holding on to God.

May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you now, and forever more.

All: Thanks be to God!

✠ BENEDICTION

One: Know that God loves you.

God has always loved you.

God will never stop loving you.

Love is the answer.

Let us love one another as we walk together through these difficult days & know that amid neighbor helping neighbor, we will find the holy & healing presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All: Thanks be to God!

✠ Sending Song:

Freedom with Charlie Hawks, Melinda Iroabuchi, & Voices of Vision

You came to set the captives free

You came to bring us liberty

My sin and my rejection

Your blood and my acceptance

Now I'm alive to bring You praise

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom

Every chain is broken through You, Jesus

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom

Whoa oh, oh, oh

Your blood has covered every sin

Your grace empowers me to win

My pain and my oppression met

Your blood and my acceptance

Now I'm alive to bring You praise

I'm free I'm free, I'm free to dance and sing

I'm free, I'm free, I'm free to shout it out

I'm free, I'm free, I'm free to dance and sing

I'm free, I'm free, I'm free to worship You

I'm gonna worship you

Thank you for joining us in worship today.

Go to holytrinitymemphis.org to learn more about our faith community.

Our next sermon series will be The Promises of God.

September 20: God’s Promise to Abraham – Genesis 15:1-6 (Luke 3:8)

September 27: God Works through Joseph – Genesis 37:3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50:15- 21 (Luke 6:35) October 4: The Promise of Passover – Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8 (Luke 22:14- 20)

October 11: Golden Calf – Exodus 32:1-14 (Luke 23:34)

October 18: God Answers Hannah – 1 Samuel 1:9-11, 19-20; 2:1-10 (Luke 1:46-55)

October 25: God’s Promise to David – 2 Samuel 7:1-17 (Luke 1:30-33)

November 1: God’s Care for the Widow – (All Saints) 1 Kings 17:1-16 [17-24] (Luke 4:24- 26) November 8: Jonah and God’s Mercy – Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10 [4:1-11] (Luke 18:13)

November 15: God Calls Isaiah – Isaiah 6:1-8 (Luke 5:8-10)

November 22: God Promises a New Covenant (Reign of Christ Sunday) Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28; then 31:31-34 (Luke 22:19-20)

November 29: 1st Sunday of Advent

[i] Online Communion for Palm Sunday was written by the Rev. Maren C. Tirabassi.