Worship Elements: Loving What Matters Most
Exodus 20:3-11 (CEB) · The Good Life · Week Two · Blessing of the Backpacks, Honoring Educators
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 this is your first Sunday or you are back after a long time away, the door is open and we are glad you are here. School is starting across our communities this week, and on a morning when calendars fill up fast, we stop and gather to remember who holds our days. We are a church learning to keep our love for God at the center, and one of the five promises we make here is prayers, the daily turning of our attention back to God. There is room for you here, exactly as you are. Come and worship.
(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: Out of all the voices calling for our attention,
People: we have come to hear the One who loves us first.
Leader: Out of all the things asking for first place,
People: we give our first love to God.
Leader: “You must have no other gods before me,” says the Lord.
People: So we turn our hearts here, to the God who brought us out and brought us home.
Leader: Lift your voices and worship the One who matters most.
Welcome Your Neighbor
Loving God has never been a solo project. Part of keeping God at the center is making room for the person beside you, the one you know well and the one you have never met. A warm welcome is the kind of thing that makes someone want to come back. This is what witness looks like, ordinary and unhurried, the gospel carried in how we treat one another.
So make room on purpose. Picture the empty chair beside you next Sunday. Whose name goes in it?
If you’re worshiping at home, turn to whoever is in the room with you and greet them too. Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.
Opening Prayer
Our songs have named who God is. Will you pray with me now, using the words on the screen?
All: Holy God, you know where our attention drifts when the day gets loud. Gather our scattered hearts this morning. Quiet the noise, open our ears to your voice, and make us ready to receive what you have for us. Meet us here as we worship. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:3-11 (CEB)
(Read by a lay reader, seated. The reader introduces the passage before reading it.)
Today we hear again from Exodus, the book of Israel’s rescue from slavery in Egypt. Last week God opened the covenant with an invitation. This week the first commandments follow.
Listen for what God asks to come first, and notice that every command rests on a love that came before it.
Leader: This is the Word of God for the people of God.
People: Thanks be to God!
Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer
Online and in this room, you are invited to pray. If you have a request for our prayer team, fill out a prayer request card from the pew rack and drop it in the offering plate, or share it in the Church Center app, and someone will pray with you this week.
Faithful God, we bring you the week that just began. Bless the students who walked into new classrooms, nervous and hopeful. Bless the teachers and the bus drivers and the cafeteria workers who carry so much for so many. Bless the parents standing at the door watching their children go. For everyone starting something hard this week, give courage. For everyone who is tired before the week even begins, give rest. For everyone carrying a worry they have not said out loud, we hold it with you now in silence.
(brief pause)
You are the One we love most, and you are the One who first loved us. Teach us to keep you at the center, so that everything else can find its right place. We pray as Jesus taught us, joining our voices in the prayer he gave 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.
All: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
All: Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Blessing of the Backpacks
(Placement in the service is flexible. Educators receive a gift as part of the blessing flow.)
Students, teachers, and everyone who works in a school, this part of the morning is for you. Would you come forward, and bring your backpack or your bag if you brought one. Parents, grandparents, you are welcome to come with them.
(once gathered)
This is the heart of what we mean by loving what matters most. We are putting the people we love, and the work they do, into God’s hands at the start of a new year.
To our educators: this congregation sees you. The hours you give, the kids you carry home in your heart, the difference you make that no one claps for. As a small sign of our love, we have a gift for each of you this morning, given with our thanks.
Will you pray with me?
Loving God, bless these students. Give them curiosity, courage, and kind friends. Bless these teachers, counselors, and staff. Steady them, refresh them, and remind them that their work matters to you. Watch over every backpack, every classroom, every long day. Hold this whole school year in your hands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Invitation to Give and Check-In
Everything we have is a gift before it is ever ours. We give because God has been generous with us first, and our giving lets this church be generous in return. You saw a piece of that this morning. The gift cards our educators just received come straight out of the regular giving of this congregation, your offering turned into a tangible thank-you for the people who shape our kids. That is what your gifts do, week in and week out.
If you give faithfully, month after month, thank you. Your steady generosity is what makes a morning like this one possible. And if this is the first time you have ever given here, welcome, and thank you for joining in.
There are three simple ways to give. You can place your gift in the offering plate as it passes, give online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or use the Church Center app, the easiest way to give right from your phone.
However you connect with us, let us know you are here. You can check in on the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or on the attendance pad as it comes down your row.
Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.
Doxology (8:30 only)
Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow, UMH #94 in E-flat, chorus.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Generous God, receive these gifts and the people who gave them. Take what we have offered and put it to work in the world you love. Send us out to practice service, not because we have to, but because love always looks for somewhere to go. Make us a blessing this week to students and strangers, to the worn out and the worried, in the name of the One who gave everything for us. Amen.
Will you please stand as we sing together?
Benediction
You came in this morning with a hundred things competing for first place. Go out having given your first love to God, and let everything else settle into its right place behind that. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.
The God who loved you first goes before you. The Christ who calls you home walks beside you. The Spirit who orders your loves lives within you. Go in peace. And all God’s people said, Amen.