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.
Feel free to copy from these liturgies. We only ask that when substantial portions are abstracted or used in a written work, Seekers Church be credited, and that the URL be cited.
