Don’t panic! Don’t worry! Be blessed! If you missed worship this passed weekend you can catch up via our YouTube recording of worship.
Since you’re at home, sit back, relax, pour a cuppa and enjoy the Guild led service.
The hymns are on screen, meaning you can sing along too!
Leader: Welcome to this time of prayer
All: May it be a home to all today
Leader: Loving God of our whole world
All: Open our hearts to Your presence
Leader: Touch us with Your loving hand
All: And bring peace to us and between us.
Amen
2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
God of the ordinary and extraordinary,
in a world where money counts,
where awful things happen,
where power is abused.
It’s hard sometimes to see beyond it all
and sing Your praise for the blessings we have.
But we persist
because You have promised to care for the humble
to love us in our confusion
to come to meet us in the silence
or the surprising moment of joy
or the quiet comfort of friendship
With the Church around the world this evening
we join our voices together in praise
and keep silence in prayer.
Forgive us for the times this week when we’ve not done well
when we’ve struggled to say the right thing
or go the extra mile.
When we have looked arrogantly at others
and forgotten to open our souls to Your gaze.
Help us to hope
and to share Your love with all around us
in Your name and with your blessing, Amen
Loving God
we pray for our world
for all the millions of people whom You know, though we do not.
We are blessed that we can worship in peace and safety.
We pray for Christians especially today in The Ukraine, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India.
Give comfort and strength to those who try to make peace and justice
and turn the hearts and minds
of those who work against them
to good, not evil.
We pray for our own leaders
especially at this time
when wise leadership is so much needed.
Help them to see beyond immediate concerns
and think, above all, of those who are most vulnerable in our communities.
We pray for our work here in Scotland.
For all those who try to fill the gaps
and give hope in dark places.
We ask Your blessing on Viewpark, Bothwell, Burnhead and St John the Baptist Churches who are opeing their doors for a place of warm in this difficult time in our community.
Here in our own church community,
we pray for those sick and in difficulty.
May they know the comfort and gentle touch of Your love,
the love that calls us by our names and says, “You are mine”.
Around us here are things that remind us of the people of the past
who have worshipped and worked in our midst.
In a moment of silence, we remember those we love who have died
We miss them, and remember them
even as we take comfort that they are in Your care.
God of light and love
You created us for both joy and suffering
You came into the world as our Brother and Saviour
You abide with us in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Be with us in our speaking and our thinking and our hearts and souls
today and this week
in Jesus’ name
Amen
L: May we find a place
All: For love to belong in the world
L: May we make a welcome for the lost
All: On the paths of our lives
L: May we find in each place
All: God already waiting for us
L: May God be our vision
and may Christ be our pattern,
may the Spirit be our energy,
and may the love of God
Creator, Saviour and Holy Spirit,
be with us, and those we love
today and always.
Amen
Don’t worry if you missed worship yesterday, or if you’ve worshipped elsewhere and want to worship again, our edited service is now available. We’re blessed you’ve chosen to worship with us.
Welcome & Church News Stanley Cook
INTROIT Restore O Lord the honour of your name HYMN 469
Call to worship
We each have a right to be here, a right not based on our
righteousness but on God’s free grace.
O give thanks to our God who is good,
whose saving love endures forever.
Let those who are redeemed by God declare it,
rescued from trouble and gathered from many lands;
From the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south,
give thanks to God who is always good!
HYMN 624 In Christ there is no east or west (tune 69)
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Young and Young at Heart
MP 49 Be bold Be strong!
Scripture Genesis 4:1-12 Stanley Cook
HYMN When Cain killed Abel in a fight (tune 527)
Sermon “Sins shows its face – powerlessness and unbelief”
HYMN 587 Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove (tune 718)
Offering & Dedication
Prayers for others
HYMN 555 Amazing Grace how sweet the sound
Benediction and Spoken Amen
MP 460 May God’s Blessing
October is a month with a particular focus on tackling poverty. Monday 17 October is the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and 3-9 October is Challenge Poverty Week.
Friends, fellow travellers, all who connect online at this time …companions in worship … Let this be the place and time for: fellowship … conversation … solitude … contemplation … praise … silence … Let this be a crossing place, where paths human and divine, weave together … and just sometimes, blessing comes to those who persevere.
God, Holy and Living: Maker of heaven and earth, Healer of creation, Breath and fire of Life. We pause now to worship You, now as the seasons turn, we still ourselves in reverence, now as days turn short and nights grow long … Pausing, still, we wait on You … We, who need Your blessing upon our lives, as night gives way to dawn.
Holy God, We who have fallen short, missed the mark, lost our way in the shadows; we need Your blessing, Your good word upon us … to reach the goal, make the mark, find our way home. We who have so much to celebrate and also to regret: we need Your blessing, Your good word within us in our daily struggles; the obstacles faced, our burdens borne and challenges met, apart and together. Whisper Your blessing to us today, The blessing of a new, grace-soaked story to live by, in place of the tired old tales we repeat to ourselves. The blessing of the precious name You call us by, Your name for each of us, Your beloved in Christ. The blessing of a new direction of travel, the way that leads to life, the way of Christ. We wait on You … we who need Your blessing upon our lives, as night gives way to dawn.
People of God all you who watch and wait, who persevere in prayer, who seek the blessing of the God of Life: “Your help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” “The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” (Psalm 121 v2, vv7-8)
O Holy Mystery; who are you, who faces me here tonight at the crossing place? Are you human, angel, god or my own imagining? Now I must face you and not let go, not until you reveal your name or out of joint, I limp on into the dawn, blessed and new-named, a new me, a new day. Amen
Loving God, all our times are in Your hands. We give thanks, for the many who have made this journey before us here, in and around this church, this beloved place of worship and community life; where friends, fellow-travellers and companions, have found blessing in times of trial and struggle, celebration and festivity, all through lives of patient faithfulness and persistent prayer. These people, we name quietly now, in gratitude for all that they have given and every way that they have been a blessing
Silence
As Jacob wrestled for blessing and as Jesus urges us to pray always and not to lose heart, so in our turn we pray for these, our concerns of the day, naming them now:
God, Holy and Living: Maker of heaven and earth, Healer of creation, Breath and fire of Life: As Your world turns on its way and all its people pass from night, into day and back into night again, may the prayer of Your people never cease and Jacob’s struggle for blessing and the widow’s demand for justice continue, until every voice in heaven, on earth and all of creation redeemed, cries ‘Glory!’ Until that day, we will join our voices to their persistent chorus in the prayer of Jesus: Our Father … Amen
Let us go now, to strive like Jacob for blessing, persistent as the widow demanding justice, praying always and not losing heart. And the grace of Christ attend us, the love of God surround us, the Holy Spirit keep us, this day and forever.
BELLSHILL: CENTRAL PARISH CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 