These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.
Welcome
Welcome to worship at McPherson First United Methodist Church. Whether you have worshiped here for years or you found us this week, in person or online, you belong here.
Our text this morning comes from Micah, a farmer’s son who walked twenty-five miles to tell a capital city what God actually requires. His answer is one sentence long, and it has outlived everything else he said. The promise we lean on is service.
If you’re looking for your next step, visit mcphersonfirst.org/next or open the Church Center app.
(8:30 only, transition to the Call to Worship) I invite you to join in our responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.
Call to Worship (8:30 only)
Leader: God has already told us what is good.
People: Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly.
Leader: We have offered God everything except our lives.
People: Teach us what you actually require.
Leader: The way is plain, and it is not easy.
People: We come ready to walk it together.
Leader: Come and worship the God who asks for us.
People: We bring our whole lives this morning.
Welcome Your Neighbor
Think of someone you haven’t talked with in a while. This week, call or text them and tell them you’d be glad to sit with them here next Sunday. That’s witness, in your own words.
If you’re worshiping online, we’re glad you’re with us. Please stand and welcome your neighbor, then remain standing as we sing.
Opening Prayer
We’ve just sung to the same God who was faithful to the generations before us. Now settle your heart and pray with me, using the words on screen.
All: God who asks for justice and kindness, we have offered you many things instead of ourselves. Show us the one place our lives should change. Give us the humility to walk with you, and the nerve to do what you require. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Micah 1:3-5; 5:2-5a; 6:6-8 (CEB)
(Read by a lay reader. The reader introduces themselves and offers one brief sentence of personal connection to the congregation before reading.)
Today we hear from Micah, a prophet from a farm town about twenty-five miles outside Jerusalem. He worked at the same time as Isaiah, who moved in the capital with access to kings. Micah writes about that capital the way a rural person writes about a city.
Listen for how the worshiper’s offers keep getting bigger, and where the answer finally lands.
Hear now Micah, chapter 1, verses 3 through 5; chapter 5, verses 2 through 5; and chapter 6, verses 6 through 8.
Micah 1:3-5
Look! The Lord is coming out from his place;
he will go down and tread on the shrines of the earth.
Then the mountains will melt under him;
the valleys will split apart,
like wax yielding to the fire,
like waters poured down a slope.
All this is for the crime of Jacob
and the sins of the house of Israel.
Who is responsible for the crime of Jacob?
Isn’t it Samaria?
Who is responsible for the shrines of Judah?
Isn’t it Jerusalem?
Micah 5:2-5a
As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces,
one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you.
His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.
Therefore, he will give them up
until the time when she who is in labor gives birth.
The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel.
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
They will dwell secure,
because he will surely become great throughout the earth;
he will become one of peace.
Micah 6:6-8
With what should I approach the Lord
and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
with year-old calves?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
He has told you, human one, what is good and
what the Lord requires from you:
to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.
Leader: This is the Word of God for the people of God.
People: Thanks be to God!
Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer
We’re about to pray together. Whether you’re here or joining online, God hears every prayer, spoken aloud or held quietly in your heart.
While we pray, the candles up front are open to anyone. I invite you to come light one: for someone you’re carrying today, for a place where you want to see justice done, or for a neighbor here or anywhere in the world who needs kindness this week. Set it in the sand. If you’d rather stay in the pew, you’re praying with us there too. I’ll leave a couple of moments of silence along the way.
Prayers is one of the promises we make here. To share a prayer request, use the Church Center app anytime, or fill out a card from the pew back and drop it in the offering plate.
Will you pray with me?
God who has already told us what is good, we come this morning ready to stop pretending we do not know.
(pause)
We praise you for speaking plainly. You did not hide what you want from us behind ritual or expertise. You said it in one sentence a child can carry and a lifetime cannot exhaust.
We confess that we prefer the offerings to the obedience. We would rather give you something than become someone. We do justice in our opinions and love kindness in our intentions, and both stay safely inside our heads.
Hear us in this silence, as we hold before you the places where doing justice would cost us something. Give us the courage to move it out of our heads and into our hands.
(pause)
We pray for those in McPherson County who go without: without housing, without enough food, without anyone to speak for them. We pray for the sick and the grieving, here and far from here. We pray for our leaders in Topeka and Washington and for leaders everywhere, that they would govern with justice and kindness. We pray for a world where the people who decide are rarely the people who suffer, and ask you to close that distance.
We give you thanks for the people in this congregation who have been doing this verse for years without announcing it, the ones who show up where the need is and say nothing about it afterward.
We pray in Jesus’ name, joining our voices in the prayer he taught us:
All: Our Father, who art 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. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Invitation to Give and Check-In
Micah’s worshiper offered rams and rivers of oil, trying to buy what God had never put up for sale. God asks for our lives before our possessions, and our gifts follow from that.
Thank you to those who give every month, steadily, whether or not anyone notices. That reliability is what turns good intentions into a food pantry and a mission budget. If today is your first gift, thank you.
You can give through the offering plate, online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or through the Church Center app, the easiest way to give from your phone.
As the offering is received, check in through the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or by signing the attendance pad next to the center aisle and passing it down the row. Checking in is practicing presence, so no one worships alone and unseen.
Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
We’ve given our gifts, and now we’re sent to practice service, which Micah would call the only proof that any of this took. Will you pray with me?
Generous God, thank you for these gifts and for everyone here who quietly does the work. Send us out to do justice where we live. Amen.
Will you please stand as we sing together?
Benediction
Go now, doing justice and loving kindness, knowing it is well with your soul. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.
God walks with you, Christ goes ahead, the Spirit steadies you. And all God’s people said, Amen.