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Seekers Church

A Christian Community

In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour

GREEN 2007

Prophetic Hope

GATHERING

ENTRANCE

REFLECTION

The hope-filled language of prophecy, in cutting through … despair and hopelessness, is the language of amazement. It is a language that engages the community in new discernments and celebrations just when it had nearly given up and had nothing to celebrate. The language of amazement is against the despair just as the language of grief is against the numbness.

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, pp 67-68.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader:      Give thanks to the Creator of goodness, for the love of God brings hope.

People:   Keep hope alive.

Leader:       Let those who have been saved by God tell their story:

how they were snatched from the oppressor, gathered together, and led to a safe place to live.

People: Prophetic hope.

Leader: Let those confined in darkness by their doubt,

and those sickened to the threshold of death

cry out in hope, and watch as God provides a word of healing truth,

a word of hope.

All: God’s love – that clear, unvarnished, truthful prophecy

brings hope to those who walk with Christ.

INVOCATION

HYMN

SILENCE

RESPONSIVE READING

Leader:        Hear this, you that trample on those in need,

                    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

Voice 1:       Give justice to the weak and the orphan;

maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

Voice 2:       Rescue the weak and the oppressed;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Leader:        The Holy One speaks peace,

peace to the faithful people

who turn their hearts to God.

Voice 1:      When steadfast love and faithfulness embrace,

                   when peace and justice kiss,

Voice 2:       Faithfulness sprouts from the earth,

                   and justice leans down from heaven.

All:              The Holy One pours out riches,

the land springs to life,

justice clears God's way,

making a path for hope.

SILENCE

PRAYERS

COMMON CONFESSION

Leader:        When I walk in the light

                    I can be cheerful and hopeful,

                    But not prophetic.

People:        When I walk in darkness,

                    having neither knowledge nor power,

                    I am the prophet of despair,

                    with little hope.

Leader:        I have a voice, but no words to speak.

People:         I have a mind and a body, but I cannot act.

Leader:         I suffer from paralysis of the spirit.

All:               Prophetic hope is beyond me,

                    more than I can ever do or be.

INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

ASSURANCE

Leader:    God assures us:

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you.

Where our desires are joined

               You shall go to all to whom I send you,  

          and you shall speak,  

for I have put my words in your mouth. 

              You shall speak with power and act with courage,  

         for you are prophetic hope. 

All:          Amen.

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

JESUS PRAYER

All:               Our Father-Mother, who is in the heavens,

                    may your name be made holy,

                    may your dominion come,

                    may your will be done,

                    on the earth as it is in heaven.

                    Give us today the bread that we need;

                    and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;

                    and do not put us to the test, but rescue us from evil.

                    For yours is the dominion,

                    and the power,

                    and the glory forever. Amen.

HYMN

THE WORD

SCRIPTURE

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

OFFERING 

SHARED REFLECTIONS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

HYMN

BENEDICTION

Leader:        Take your courage and recklessness

                    out into the world.

                    Work every day to bring about the realm of God.

                    Spread prophetic hope wherever you go.

All:               Amen.

WORSHIP RESOURCES

Call to Worship: Based on Psalms 107 and 85.

Responsive Reading: Based on Psalm 85

Unison Prayer: New Century Hymnal, pp 56-57.

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