The Way We Worship Together: March 20, 2011 at Union Center

Welcome to a weekly overview of Union Center Christian Church's Sunday  morning service. You can learn also learn about some of the songs we sing at Union Center each week in advance of the Sunday service by reading my “Getting Ready For Sunday” post each Thursday.

Call To Worship

Pastor John welcomed as those gathered by God and invited to greet one another. 

Welcome to Union Center. We are here to worship the God who created us and gives us hope for our lives, our homes and our city. Stand with me and hear the word of God, in John chapter 4, speak of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

Pastor John:  But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

All:  In Jesus Christ we are His holy people, His worshipers.  Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Jesus made a new way for us to worship.  Let’s join our voices and sing.

Song: My Soul Magnifies the Lord, written by Daniel Carson & Chris Tomlin. We learned this re-telling of Mary's Magnificat during December.  This week our chapter in the Story covered the birth of Christ and we thought it would be meaningful to rehearse Mary's response to God' purposes for her, told through the angel Gabriel.

My soul magnifies the Lord,

My soul magnifies the Lord

He has done great things for me, 

Great things for me.

Child Dedication
A couple of times a year we invite new parents to dedicate their children as part of our corporate worship.  Over the years, we've alternated between doing this during Sunday morning worship or as its own event on a Sunday evening.  I, for one, love that we've brought this ordinance into the midst of the community so that we can affirm each other more fully.  After all, when parents commit to raising their child to follow the Lord (and to receive all the benefits of health, education and the church, as one of the vows states), we all make a commitment to pray and support each other through the years.  It's a beautiful act of family, in it's extended, corporate sense.

Between two services, nine families dedicated ten chiildren.  Unfortunately, I don't have the copy of statements of dedication.  Pastor John read the purpose of the dedication, recited a series of statements to which the parents replied "I do" and then invited covenant members to respond with our own "I do".  Pastor John then prayed for each of the children by name.

Words and Prayers of Confession

In this second week of Lent, we are seeking God to send His people to every place.  We are reminded of God’s blessing on Abraham in Genesis 28:14:  Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Will you read after me in a prayer of confession to our God? 

Randy:  What you promised our father Jacob so long ago has been partly fulfilled. But though we are many, we have yet to be spread everywhere. 

All:  Continue to send Your people to every part of the globe, including our own city. 

Reader: Wherever the gospel has been heard, cause it also to be seen.  Establish tangible signs of Your ongoing goodness. 

All:  Amen

Reader:  We pour water again to remember the that He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us. 

[each week of Lent, we are pouring water from a red glass pitcher into six glass bowls, representing the Christ who poured Himself out for us]

 All:  Jesus Christ our Savior

Song: Shout to the North, written by Martin Smith.  We sang this as a response to the Word in Genesis 28:14 and to frame our corporate prayer that God would send His people to every place on the globe.

Shout to the North and the South,

Sing to the East and the West,

Jesus is Savior to all;

Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Congregational Prayer: As a congregation, we are praying through the 40 days of Lent for God to bless our city (Seek God for the City).  We framed this week's prayer during the middle of Shout to the North.
Let’s pray from March 20 in Seek God for the City prayer books.  You can also follow along on the screen.
Margaret:  Merciful God, we ask that you would make everyday believers become Your proclaimers. Support their testimony by clear exhibits of Your love in the families and neighborhood of Greater Binghamton and Ngasyak. For Christians to receive this promise as a mandate, that they will labor together to complete the task of evangelization.
Men:  Oh, Lord, hear our prayer. 
Margaret:  For the gospel to be proclaimed to the unevangelized people who are often overlooked in our city.
Women: Oh, Lord, hear our prayer
Margaret:  For the gospel of the kingdom to be conveyed to our friends and neighbors with clarity, wisdom and power.
All:  We take you at your Word when You say that the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world and to all nations and then the end will come. 
Margaret:  Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus! 
All: Amen. 

Song: O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, (public domain) words by Samuel Trevor Francis and music adapted from a Welsh melody by Thomas John Williams.  Our musicians and congregation have fully embraced the updated arrangement from Indelible Grace Music.  The instrumentation rolls and swells with the lyrical rehearsal of the heights and depths of God's great love lived out in the flesh of His son, Jesus.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean,

in its fullness over me!

Song: I Am Free, words and music by Jon Egan.  An appropriate anthem of thanksgiving for the work of Christ that rescues us to live and move and have our being.

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Giving:

We respond to our Creator and Redeemer with words and acts of thanks.  We give from all we have - heart, soul, mind, strength, gifts and resources.

Message:  This week The Story transitioned us from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  The birth of a Savior provided, once and for all, a chance at redemption for all of humankind.  Pastor Joshua reminded us truths about the truths of grace, redemption Christ offered by becoming fully man and remaining fully man.  Wonderful news of the Gospel!  (to download the audio recording of Pastor Joshua's sermon, click here).

Song: In Christ Alone words and music by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.  We sang this as a confession of our dependence on the finished work of Christ:

In Christ alone! Who took on flesh,

Fulness of God in helpless babe!

Words of Sending and Benediction:  Pastor John had us read John 3:16 together as a way to remember that that God's love, enfleshed in His only begotten Son, was intended for the whole world.  He reminded us of opportunities to meet Carl and Noreen Dambman, missionaries from Moscow who've been with us for 30 years.  Also, this week our congregation will be praying together for Asia: Pastor John encouraged us to pray for Allyson W. and to consider encouraging our local Japanese community by attending the benefit organized by Hidy Ochiai and Kampai Steakhouse on March 31.  He then prayed over us to leave blessed by God to be a blessing to others.


Participating in a weekly blog carnival, "Sunday Set Lists", at WorshipCommunity.com

from the book pile, 2011: T.S. Eliot, James F. White, Jan Karon, Image Journal, No. 68

I'm wondering how long I'll be able to keep up my current method of reading: about 8 books at a time, one or two chapters at a time, rotating through methodically. It's not quite as enjoyable as just falling into an interesting book, but it does seem to keep me more honest to my commitments with them. Otherwise I'm a kind of rainy-day friend showing up on some title's doorstep for a few days until my heart wanders to someone else, leaving a trail of half-read books throughout the house.


Like I said, we'll see how long this method lasts. For now: Enjoy!



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8. The Waste Land and Other Poems
Author: T.S. Eliot
Genre: Poetry
Published: Barnes & Nobles Classics, New York (2005)


General Impression: I'm a dunce. Really. I barely understood a thing I read, other than the extensive notes provided by the merciful publishers. However, I was pretty clear about Eliot's view of life; more sarcastic than witty, in my opinion. I'd like to think that, in part, my idiocy puts me in the same camp as the rest of the literary world that Eliot turned upside-down with his trailblazing poetry. Yep, I'm pretty sure that's it.


In this season of my life, I'm quite in tune with the tones and rhythms of disillusionment. In this way, I didn't need to understand much in order to totally get Mr. Eliot.


Favorite Part About Reading Eliot Out Loud: If nothing else, I had a lot of fun reviving my rusty French while reading out loud lines like this one from Lune De Miel: A l'aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises (translated: At ease between two sheets, in the home of two hundred bedbugs.)

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9.  The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith

Author: James F. White

Genre: Non-fiction, doctrine

Published: Abingdon Press (1999)

General Impression:  While this was a book I chose to read for continuing education rather than for pleasure, I did find myself occasionally caught up in the drama of history.  Occasionally.

Otherwise, James F. White manages to author a book rich in church history and doctrinal distinction without leaving a layman like me in the proverbial dust.  

Favorite New Piece of Sacrament Triva:  Did you know that the impetus for the creation and production of grape juice happened in the Church?  Seems that sacrament and American temperance had a clash in the mid-nineteenth century so prohibition won.

"In 1869, a pious Methodist dentist, Thomas Welch, invented a means of pasteurizing grape juice so as to prevent fermentation. This coincided with the first great feminist crusade, that of temperance, which meant total abstention from alcohol. Beginning in 1876, Methodists Disciplines recommended and then mandated the use of 'pure unfermented juice of the grape at the eucharist. Such a prohibition lasted until 1988. Many other American churches also switched to grape juice and many continue to use it today. In the thirteenth century, Bishop Durandus had accepted the use of fresh pressed (i.e., unfermented) grape juice as valid. Alcoholic Catholic priestss can receive permission to use it today. Perhaps these points can be resolved with the advent of nonalcoholic wines."

Well, there you have it.  May it be so...

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 10.  Home to Holly Springs

Author: Jan Karon

Genre: Fiction

Published: Viking Penguin (2007)

General Impression:  Simply for the pleasure of reading a good story, I picked this book up at the local Penguin publisher's warehouse sale this past autumn.  All of the women in my extended family enjoyed Jan Karon's Mitford Series and so I joined the fan club a few years back.

Home... is the kind of book every fan club wants, a kind of encore peek into what the happily ever after of the characters' lives looks like.  In this case, Father Tim Kavanaugh, now happily a husband and father, takes a road trip to his childhood home.  (That would be Holly Springs for you just tuning in.)  A mysterious message arrives in the mail, enticing him to take the journey back after a thirty-eight year absence.  

We get all the simple joys of reading any road trip story, plus the peek into the childhood joys, pains, traumas, insecurities, unanswered questions, and homey comforts that made our beloved character the man he is today.  And, yes, there's a surprise to be discovered along the way that does, indeed, change all that Father Tim thought he knew about himself and his parents.  

Like I said, it's a simple -- but good -- story.  I won't spoil the surprise here.

An Excerpt:  For a simple story, this scene was especially profound...

"Remember when I used to ask you to take your head rag off?"

Her sudden smile was balm to him. "You was th' aggravatin'est little weasel," she said.

"I'm going to aggravate you some more.  Would you let me see what's under there?  Maybe the Holy Grail we've all been scrambling around to find."

She reached up at once and slid the scarf off and bowed her head to him. 

Two long, ropy scars intersected at the top of her head to form a perfect cross.

"Dear God," he said, stunned.

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11.  Grandma Wears Blue Jeans

Author: Alice De Wolf Pardee

Genre: Non-fiction, memoir

Published: Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, NY (1959)

General Impression:  My own mother is the Queen of Used Book Sales.  It is perhaps why one of my love languages is old books.  Instead of a $2.59 birthday card from the drug store, she purchased this little vintage library discard for me.   Of course the birthday check tucked into the old card-stock library sleeve on the cover page was a sweet bonus.  Adding to the total charm of the package, this book was printed in one of our own hometown printing presses that Brian's grandmother worked at in her youth.  Back when town's had their own printing presses.  Sigh.

Just a pleasurable 103-page bedtime reading journey.  Even so, the author tracks pretty big shifts in time -- describing her transition from mother of three to grandmother of five in a few short years.  The finale of the story is the summer vacation with all sixteen family members come home for summer vacation for an entire month.

Sound a bit familiar?  I began to wonder if, perhaps, my  mother was trying to tell me something?

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12. Image Journal, No. 68 (winter 2010 - 2011)

Author: Edited by Gregory Wolfe

Genre: Poetry

Published: Center for Reglious Humanism, Seattle Pacific University

General Impression: I'm not sure if it's cheating to include a journal in my reading list for the year?  Anyone?  I figure it's 118 pages of short story, poetry, articles and reviews and that should count for something.

The contributors in this issue include Terence Davies, Judith Rock, Priscilla Gilman, Charles Turner and Kate Daniels.  The artwork this issue, from the Filipono artist Emmanuel Garibay, was especially captivating.  I found Emmaus to kind of throw my notions of the Biblical account out of whack long enough to help me see something new about myself and my Christ.  That may forever be one of the greatest gifts any artist can give another human being.

Favorite Poem In This Issue: "Another Idiot Psalm: We Say Flight" by Scott Cairns

We say flight of the imagination,

but stand ankle-deep in silt. We say deep

life of the mind, but seal the stone to keep

the tomb untouched, O Stillness. Nearly all

we find to say we speak for the most part

unawares, what little bit we think to say

unmoved, O Great Enormity Unmoved.

Brief thaw turned ragged March extending, O

Lost Cause, into yet another ragged April, so.

Brief shoots of new green trampled underfoot

by sleet, and lo, accumulating weather, moot,

sore-clipped -- spring flowers tattered with the cold.

Lord, we say, have mercy on us, by which 

each idiot more nearly  means to plead,

O Silent One Unspeaking, save me.

To subscribe to the Image Journal, click here.

To enjoy their excellent blog, Good Letters,  click here.

Friday is for new finds: spring miscellany

First spring sighting:  We're a pretty pessimistic bunch up here in the Northeast, kind of begrudging our first days of spring temperatures for daring to get our hopes up that warm weather is just around the corner.  We don't like to be teased and  we certainly don't want anyone to think we were actually naive enough to get our hopes up that the sunshine is going to last.

Still, I was pretty excited yesterday to find this little fella and am not ashamed to claim him as my first spring-sighting of the year.  (I didn't actually take this photo, but ironically, he looks exactly the same!)

Spring showers:  And then there's this little gem that's been popping up everywhere I turn the past couple of weeks.  I would have loved to see it in its debut at IAM's Encounter11 two weeks ago.  I hear it was a smashing success.  

Rosebud Incarnation from Slim Jim Spur on Vimeo.

An audio re-imagining of the title song and dance sequence from the 1946 MGM musical "Till The Clouds Roll By" starring Ray McDonald and June Allyson. Premiering at Encounter 11 in NYC on March 5th, 2011. Original film is in the public domain.

Go ahead. Watch it again.  I didn't quite get it at first, either.  I would love to know how many hours went into this production.  It's brilliant.  But you don't have to take my word for it; check out this review from someone much smarter than me. 

Last spring sighting:  my sweet Kendra turned 15 last week.  I'm still in denial.

Isn't she a beauty?

What new-found glories have you discovered lately?  I'm opening up the link-sharing on Fridays for all of your great finds.

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