Welcome to this online worship service. We may be apart and distant, yet we are home to each other as we gather in this new way.

Prelude – Bach “Prelude in C BWV 846” by Anna Kojovic-Frodl

 

Call To Worship – by Arlen Goff

Thresholds.
We cross them every day.
From room to room,
from outside to inside,
and back again,
from here to there,
from anywhere to everywhere,
from age to age.
Each threshold offers an opportunity
for change, for renewal, for transformation,
from what we were and what we are
to what we can be.
In this hour and in this place,
we cross a threshold from
our day-to-day everydayness into
space and time attuned to the other,
to the sacred, to the holy,
into an awareness of new life
pregnant with possibilities.
How will we be renewed in this moment?
How will we be changed by this hour?
How will we be transformed through this
gathering of beloved community?
Come, you longing, thirsty souls!
Come, let us worship together!

 

Chalice Lighting – by L.A. McCae

We light this chalice, on the shorelines of life
Gathered as One at thresholds unknown
Surrendering to the Mystery and Blessing that surely awaits
As we dispel fear and call forth love, light, and peace
Crossing over the threshold together – as One

 

Love be with you and all living things

 

Gesture of Friendship

 

Message for All Ages – Girl on Wire by Lucy Estela

 

Children’s Blessing
We are…
We are blessed…
We are blessed by being…
We are blessed by being here…
We are blessed by being here together.

 

Meditation and Prayer – by Rev. Sara LaWall

Spirit of life & love,

We are called together by love
A love deep enough to hold our joys and sorrows
Our pain and loss
Our doubts and fears
a love strong enough to steady us in the thresholds of life
awaiting the next blessing.

May we find the courage
To persevere in the storm
To see the holy and the broken
to stay present to life.

When the pull to disappear takes hold
with all its harsh realities
May we conjure up that fierce love
to bring our hopeful vision into being
Discovering the humanity, bravery, goodness
still calling us forth
May we breathe into that story and make it come alive

May we be vessels of comfort and compassion
May we be vessels of peace and justice
May we be vessels of hope and healing
May love prevail.
In the name of all that is holy we pray. Amen.

 

Musical Reflection – “Debussy The Little Shepherd” by Anna Kojovic-Frodl

 

Reading – “Anyone’s Ministry” by Rev. Gordon McKeeman
Ministry is
• a quality of relationship between and among human beings that beckons forth hidden possibilities;
• inviting people into deeper, more constant, more reverent relationship with the world and with one another;
• carrying forward a long heritage of hope and liberation that has dignified and informed the human venture over many centuries;
• being present with, to, and for others in their terrors and torments; in their grief, misery and pain; knowing that those feelings are our feelings, too;
• celebrating the triumphs of the human spirit, the miracles of birth and life, the wonders of devotion and sacrifice;
• witnessing to life-enhancing values;
• speaking truth to power;
• speaking for human dignity and equity, for compassion and aspiration;
• believing in life in the presence of death;
• struggling for human responsibility against principalities and structures that ignore humaneness and become instruments of death.
It is all these and much, much more than all of them, present in the wordless, the unspoken, the ineffable.
It is speaking and living the highest we know and living with the knowledge that it is never as deep, or as wide or a high as we wish.
Whenever there is a meeting that summons us to our better selves, wherever
• our lostness is found,
• our fragments are united,
• our wounds begin healing,
• our spines stiffen and
• our muscles grow strong for the task,
there is ministry.

 

Hymn – “Wake Now My Senses”

 

Reflection – “Ministry On The Threshold” Rev. Dr. Marlene Walker

 

Musical Response – “I Need You To Survive” by David Frazier, Glen Thomas Rideout and the General Assembly Choir

 

haring of Joys and Sorrows

 

Chalice Extinguishing and Benediction

Berthold Brecht asked, “In these dark times, will there also be singing?”
He answered himself.
Yes, there will also be singing.
About these dark times.
Surely not now, with blood still staining the streets.
Surely not now, while the fires are burning
And the people are still pouring milk on their faces
To ease the sting of the tear gas and pepper.
Be still, and listen.
Hear the song rising, rising from a shout to a roar,
“Hands Up!”
“Don’t Shoot!”
“Hands Up!”
“DON’T SHOOT”
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I CAN’T BREATHE!”
The rehearsed songs will come tomorrow, or the next day,
But with the tears of rage and grief flowing,
Voices breaking with the force of the scream,
“I CAN’T BREATHE.”
This is the song.
This is the song about these dark times.

 

Postlude – “Finding Balance McLaughlin” by Anna Kojovic-Frodl