Sunday, May 24, 2020

Cove's Celebration Service - Sunday, May 28, 2017

As we deal with the new normal presented by the coronavirus, I've decided to post worship services I led in the past. Although this is in no way a substitute for gathering with our brothers and sisters to praise the Lord, I hope it helps those of us who feel Sunday is incomplete without some kind of worship. I'm also posting separately the sermons preached during these services. Below is the service I led at Cove Presbyterian Church on May 28, 2020.

As with all our services, worship is intended to be a free expression of our love for God and the joy we feel when we accept that love. Of course, there are many ways for us to express that love and joy.

We started the service with the announcements. As the Bible entered (marking the beginning of our worship), we sang "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made."

Instrumental and vocal music are important to our worship. Songs give us the chance to praise God and to help focus our attention on the theme of the service. During the service, we have the opportunity to sing songs that reflect different musical styles. Since God has called into his church as individuals with a variety of tastes, this offers us the chance to display our sensitivity for our fellow worshipers and to grow in our knowledge of how we might praise God. Our first song was “How Firm a Foundation.”

Our prayers represent our communication with God. Of course, as Paul wrote, the Holy Spirit “...intercedes for us with groans too deep for words”; therefore, God already knows our needs. Still it’s important that we put them into words, as well as the regret we feel for our sins and our thanks for all God has done for us.

During the Our Congregational Prayer, we confessed our sins and hear the assurance that we're forgiven.  We also lifted our concerns and needs to God.  We closed this prayer with The Lord’s Prayer. After we collected the offering, we praised and thanked God for his presence in our church and within our lives. During the offering, the choir sang “Communion Song.”

God’s word is at the core of the worship service. It’s often reflected in the songs we sing and the prayers we pray. But it’s most clearly present when we read a passage from the Bible, and it’s applied to our daily living in the sermon. This morning, the message was based on John 17:1-11:
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
The title of the sermon was “Foam Fingers and a Wooden Cross.” 

During this service, we shared the sacrament of holy communion. When we gather around the Lord’s table, we believe that even though Christ's body and blood are not physically present in the bread and the juice, he’s with us in a special spiritual way. Jesus is the host of this meal and when we share the communion, we can experience his presence in a special way. For that reason, the elements are spiritual nourishment in Christ by faith. In fact, when the community as the Body of Christ gathers around table and celebrates the Lord's Supper, it’s  “transformed” into the Body of Christ, or “reformed” into the Body of Christ each time it participates in this sacrament.

We began this celebration by singing “The Communion Song” together.


 After the song, we prayed together, thanking God for giving us this opportunity to share in his presence, by praying the following prayer:
Leader: It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. From the dust of the earth you formed us into your image and breathed into us the breath of life.  When we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast.  You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God.  And spoke to us through your prophets.  And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn:
People: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.
Leader: Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ, in whom you have revealed yourself, our light and our salvation.  When you gave him to save us from our sin, your Spirit led him into the wilderness, where he fasted forty days and forty nights in preparation for his ministry.  When he suffered and died on a cross for our sin, you raised him to life, presented him alive to the apostles during forty days and exalted him at your right hand.  By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.  Now, when we your people prepare for the yearly Paschal feast of your Son's death and resurrection, you lead us to repentance for our sin and the cleansing of our hearts, that during these forty days of Lent we may be gifted and forced to renew the covenant you made with us through Christ.  In remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
People: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Leader: Remind us of your Holy Spirit.  Help us to celebrate your presence as we share the bread and the cup.  And by this same Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.  Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever.
After hearing the meaning of the sacrament, ruling elders brought to the congregation the bread and the cup, that we held until everyone was served. And then, as the Body of Christ, we ate and then we drank together.

At the end of the celebration, we again prayed, asking the Lord to help us take the meaning of communion out into the world.

Below is the podcast of the service.



I want to thank the following persons who were involved in the service:

  • Choir Director: Ray Seifert
  • Organist: Janice Torrance
  • Bell Choir Director: Sue Willson
  • Video Technician: Peggy Baldt

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