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“REFLECTIONS”
THIRD AVENUE UNITED CHURCH
WELCOMES YOU WORSHIP!
Order of Worship
SEPTEMBER 14, 2025
“FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST”
CREATION TIME 2 IN THE SEASON OF PENTECOST [Find below an edited shorter version of the church Bulletin]
ORDAINED MINISTER: Rev. Jo-Ann Hills
ORGANIST / PIANIST: Linda Emberley
HANDBELL DIRECTOR: Kathleen Link
OFFICE COORDINATOR: Jodi Hargreaves
SCRIPTURES READER:
ACKNOWLEDGING TERRITORY:
Many thousands of years ago, Indigenous people lived, worked, played, and worshipped on this land. Over time, settlers from other lands came, sometimes sharing, often destroying, the relationship Indigenous peoples had with the water, land, and skies, with their Elders, families, culture, and faith. Today, as Settlers, we are repenting and relearning how to care tenderly and respectfully for all that God has given both Indigenous people and Settlers. We give thanks to the treaty 6 peoples and the Metis for their faithful stewardship of the land and the lessons they continue to teach. Used with permission from Gathering Pentecost 2 2025; Laura J. Turnbull
CANDLE LITURGY
We light the Christ candle, reminding us of the Christ light, present with us, within us, within each other. (Light the Christ candle.)
Adapted/Used with permission Pentecost 2 Gathering 2025; Karen Cooganko9
Sung Response: “Come We that Love the Lord” 715 VU V.5 ( Verse 1, please remain seated)
1. Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known,
join in a song with sweet accord, and thus surround the throne.
1. CALL TO WORSHIP:
Compassionate friends, let us worship with joy. We rejoice! God is in this place.
God's radical love guides and encourages. We will love with heart, soul, strength, and mind. Praise be to God! Used with permission Pentecost 2 Gathering 2025; Laura Turnbull
2. OPENING PRAYER:
Dear God, our faithful companion, we are blessed to have you with us on our journey.
Deepen our desire to know you better and to learn from you. We long for your presence in every moment of our lives. Bless us each day and remind us to be grateful to those around us and thankful to you, O God. We long to be just like you. We long to take hold of the opportunities to share your love with everyone we meet. We know you care for us, we know you love us, and we long to return the love back to you. May it be so. Amen.
Used with permission Pentecost 2 Gathering 2025; Lisa Folkins
3. LEARNING TIME:
4. HYMN: VU 240 “Praise, My Soul, the God of Heaven”
1. Praise, my soul, the God of heaven,
glad of heart your carols raise;
ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
who, like me, should sing God's praise.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise the Maker all your days!
2. Praise God for the grace and favour
shown our forebears in distress;
God is still the same forever,
slow to chide and swift to bless.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Sing our Maker's faithfulness!
3. Like a loving parent caring,
God knows well our feeble frame;
gladly all our burdens bearing,
still to countless years the same.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
All within me, praise God's name!
4. Frail as summer's flower we flourish;
blows the wind and it is gone;
but, while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise the high eternal one.
5. Angels, teach us adoration,
you behold God face to face;
sun and moon and all creation,
dwellers all in time and space.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise with us the God of grace!
5. PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION Welcoming God, draw us close to your heart of love. Fill us with compassion and recognition of your grace. Reveal your truth in the words that are shared and in the silent moments. Help us to notice your voice of acceptance. May the familiar be heard in a new way as we receive the words of scripture today. We ask, in Jesus' name. Amen. Used with permission from Gathering: Pentecost 2; 2025: Laura J. Turnbull
6. PRAYER OF CONFESSION: Creator God, when you made us in your image, you gave us the power to choose, and you made the consequences of our choices real, for only in this way could we be co-creators in your great dance of life. You also gave us the gift of love and compassion, as a beacon to guide us in your way, the way that leads to life. And you ask only that we make our choices in selfless love and that we be attentive to the presence of the Spirit with which you surround us, always. Yet often we may choose selfishly, closing ourselves to the ways our choices favour ourselves over others. We may fall into temptation, trapped by senseless and harmful desires that lead to suffering and injustice. Dear God, our actions come with all their consequences for good or evil, and yet in some mysterious way, you have the power to bring wholeness and new life out of suffering and destruction. In your mercy, save us. Trusting in your love and ever-forgiving nature, we ask that you open our spirits, hearts, and minds and guide us in paths of righteousness. Amen.
Used with permission Pentecost 2 Gathering 2025; Robert Cosbey
7. WORDS OF ASSURANCE:
Friends, be assured. God always keeps a candle burning in the window for us. God is always ready to welcome us back, restore us to the fullness of life, and teach us the ways of peace once we decide that's truly what we want!
Thanks be to God. Used with permission Pentecost 2 Gathering 2025; Robert Cosbey
8. PASSING OF THE PEACE:
Friends, God rejoices in you. For you were lost but now are found. Let us share the peace of Christ and rejoice that each and every one of us is highly treasured. From the Abingdon Worship Annual 2025.
Copyright @2024 by Abingdon Press. Used by permission.
9. INVITATION TO OFFERING:
Beloved people of God, let us give to the work of God's kingdom today. May we take this opportunity to work for the common good, and especially for the family of faith. Let us present our offering. From the Abingdon Worship Annual 2025.
Copyright @2024 by Abingdon Press. Used by permission.
10. OFFERTORY VU 538 “For the Gift of Creation”
For the gift of creation, the gift of your love, and the gift of the Spirit by which we live, we thank you and give you the fruit of our hands. May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.
11. OFFERING PRAYER: Loving God, we recognize that your blessings come in so many ways; we seek to be a blessing to others. Use and multiply these gifts so that the work of our church here and around the world can be a sign of your caring presence. Amen. From the Abingdon Worship Annual 2025.
Copyright @2024 by Abingdon Press. Used by permission.
Please give by contributing online using “E-transfers” or PAR (Pre-Authorized Remittance) or by placing your offering in the plate.
E-transfers can be sent to: thirdaveunited@sasktel.net answer to security question is: “payment”
12. PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND LORD'S PRAYER:
THE LORD'S PRAYER
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 and ever. AMEN.
13. HYMN 688 VU “O Day of God, Draw Nigh”
1. O day of God, draw nigh in beauty and in power,
come with your timeless judgement now to match our present hour.
2. Bring to our troubled minds, uncertain and afraid,
the quiet of a steadfast faith, calm of a call obeyed.
3. Bring justice to our land, that all may dwell secure,
and finely build for days to come foundations that endure.
4. Bring to our world of strife your sovereign word of peace,
that war may haunt the earth no more and desolation cease.
5. O day of God, draw nigh as at creation's birth;
let there be light again, and set your judgements in the earth.
14. BLESSING:
Let us go from here to seek; may what is lost be found.
Let us go to proclaim the Good News; let us rejoice and be glad,
for in the power of God's love, what is lost will be found.
When we are lost, we will be found. Used with permission Pentecost 1 Gathering 2025; Beth W Johnston.
15. THREE FOLD AMEN.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
Jeremiah 4: 11 - 12, 22 - 28
Psalm 14 page 735 VU Refrain: “Dear God, who loves all humankind, forgive our foolish ways”
1 Timothy 1: 12 - 17 Thanks for God's Mercy
Gospel of Luke 15: 1 - 10 Joy in Heaven
Next Sunday: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost September 21, 2025: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1;
Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13.
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