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. If you’re new here, or trying church again after a long time away, we are so glad you walked in. We believe no one was meant to do life alone, and part of why we gather is to find our people and to become people for one another. One of the five promises we make here is service, the simple, steady practice of showing up for a neighbor. Wherever you are this morning, there is a place for you in this room. 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: God dreams of a neighborhood.
People: A place where every life is safe, every promise is kept, every voice tells the truth.
Leader: Honor one another. Guard each other’s lives. Keep faith. Speak true.
People: This is the neighborhood God imagines, and God invites us to help build it.
Leader: Come and worship the God who makes us neighbors.
Welcome Your Neighbor
You can’t build a neighborhood from a distance. Part of loving God is turning toward the person beside you, the familiar face and the new one. Take a moment to greet someone this morning, and let them know they are not a stranger here. This is what witness looks like, a welcome warm enough that someone wants to stay.
A neighborhood gets built in small, ordinary trusts. Write a note to someone who needs to know they are not forgotten, and send it this week.
Online with us from a hospital room, a care home, or a hard week, you are held in this greeting. Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.
Opening Prayer
We’ve lifted our voices together. Will you quiet your heart and pray with me, using the words on the screen?
All: Open God, you made us for more than ourselves. As we worship, soften whatever we have hardened, lower whatever we use to keep people out, and make us ready to receive your word. Meet us here, and send us out changed. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:12-16 (CEB)
(Read by a lay reader, seated. The reader introduces themselves and the passage before reading it.)
For a third week we hear from Exodus, the story of a people God set free. Having claimed our love in the first commandments, God now turns to the neighbor.
Listen for the kind of neighborhood these commands create, and notice that each one protects someone.
Hear now Exodus, chapter 20, verses 12 through 16.
Honor your father and your mother so that your life will be long on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.
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.
God of every neighbor, we pray for the people right around us. For anyone in this room who feels on the outside, who has wondered whether they really belong, draw them in. For our neighborhood and our town, where trust has frayed and people pass each other like strangers, knit us back together. We pray for those harmed by a broken promise, a careless word, a violence done to them. We pray for the lonely, the grieving, and the ones no one thinks to check on.
(brief pause)
Make us the kind of people who show up. Teach us to honor, to guard, to keep faith, and to tell the truth, so that the neighborhood you imagine begins to take shape among us. 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.
Invitation to Give and Check-In
Everything we have is a gift before it is ever ours, and our giving is how this church keeps being generous in return. This morning also closes our month of honoring educators. All through August we have held teachers and school staff in prayer, and last week we put gift cards in their hands, funded by the steady, faithful giving of this congregation. Thank you. That is what your generosity makes possible. And it keeps going. This week our Wednesday-night programs start back up, children, youth, and adults, another place your giving helps form the next generation.
If you give faithfully, month after month, thank you. And if this is the first time you have 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’re 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 offer and turn it into care for someone who needs it this week. Send us out to practice service, the ordinary, holy work of showing up for a neighbor, in the name of the One who came not to be served but to serve. Amen.
Will you please stand as we sing together?
Benediction
You came in this morning carrying your own corner of the world. Go out as a neighbor in the neighborhood God imagines, where every life is guarded, every promise kept, every word made true. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.
The God who made us neighbors goes before you. The Christ who crossed every line to reach you walks beside you. The Spirit who builds us together lives within you. Go in peace. And all God’s people said, Amen.