Worship at Home
Service Planning in Process
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Final Service Posted by Sunday, 11:00am
Due to the spread of Covid-19, we are taking a sabbatical from our normal Sunday morning gathering, but unity and community are more important than ever before in this season of uncertainty. To help facilitate this, we are providing an online service so that, one in heart, we can worship together even as we maintain distance out of love for our neighbors. This is designed to be used on your own or together as a family or community. We hope this resource is a blessing to you. Remember to check in on friends and neighbors with calls or text, especially the elderly among us and others who are particularly vulnerable.
Opening Song
Call to Worship
God is with us always and calls us each by name.
When we pass through difficulties and stress,
God is with us and calls us by name.
When we are discouraged and feel lost and alone,
God is with us and calls us by name, and heals us.
Blessed be God who knows us and calls us by name. AMEN.
Hymns of Adoration
Seeking the Shalom of the City
ANTIRACIST ADJUSTMENT FOR THE WEEK OF 1/3/2022
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8
To begin 2022, we’ll be exploring the book “Fierce Love”, by Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis who is a public theologian and the first Black senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in Manhattan. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and Drew University, Dr. Lewis charts a bold path to ferocious courage and rule-breaking kindness that can heal the world of its divisive culture.
Inspired by the ancient African wisdom of ubuntu, Dr. Lewis explores this Zulu concept which holds that we are each impacted by the circumstances that affect those around us and that the world won’t get better until we all get better. She shares nine practices for breaking through tribalism and our social silos thereby helping us to engineer the change we seek. Dr. Lewis highlights the power of small, morally courageous steps to heal our own lives and the lives of our family, friends and larger community. She shows that kindness, compassion and inclusive thinking are muscles that can be exercised and strengthened. Dr. Lewis presents nine behaviors in three categories: those that relate to you and the way you think about and treat yourself; those about how you behave in your community; and those about how you choose to amplify your personal code in the world. (page 13)
Dr. Lewis understands the power of stories to “form our identities, remind us of who we’ve been and teach us who we are to be. We lean into them, fall back on them; we wrestle with their contradictions, we sort them out.” She has shared personal stories and the experiences of others as guideposts for the journey toward ubuntu ethics and fierce love. May they stir our imaginations as we envision a path to the healing of humanity and our planet.
Fierce Love with Jacqui Lewis - YouTube
As we connect with the fierce Divine Love within us, let us allow that power to change us from within and then ripple outwards to embrace our family, neighbors, larger community and world.
“Fierce Love in a Manger” :: Dec 24 @Middle Church - YouTube
For our spiritual practices this week, we will begin each day with a conscious intention and simple breath prayer.
Intention: Today I will listen with compassion and kindness to the stories of others.
Begin by inhaling to a count of four while repeating the simple inhalation prayer noted below. Hold for a count of four and then exhale to another count of four while repeating the exhalation prayer. Repeat three times.
Breath Prayer:
Inhale: What hurts you hurts me. Exhale: What heals you heals me.
(submitted by Pat Deeney, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Trenton NJ, pjdeeney@hotmail.com)
Call to Confession and Reconciliation
We know what it is like to be singed by the flames of our lives, Holy God. We look for ourselves in all the wrong places - success, power, adulation. We carve our names in the granite walls of work, hoping we will be remembered when we are gone. We have gone through the waters of baptism, but live as if they have not changed us.
We need to hear your sure word, 'do not fear,' Shaper of our lives. Our failures do not cause you to quit loving us, for you continue to claim us, gathering us up in your compassionate arms. In our baptism, we discover not the end, but the first step of our journey with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Assurance of Pardon
God's words of comfort and restoration are more powerful than any foolishness, any mistakes, any sins we commit. This is good news: we are God's people!
Thanks be to God! By water and word, by the Spirit of God's redeeming grace, we are marked and sealed as God's beloved children. Amen.
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture Reading by
Kendall Brown
Sermon by Pastor Karen
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be Your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever
Amen.
Offering
Even as we are unable to gather for our Sunday morning worship services, many of the church’s expenses remain the same, and now more than ever we want to have the resources to bless the community around us. Your gracious donation will ensure that Westminster continues to Seek the Shalom of the Capital City of Trenton and beyond.
Westminster can receive donations via a simple text:
Text to 609-438-8828 the word “Give”
Westminster’s online giving number will respond asking how much you’d like to give, and steps to follow
Westminster can receive donations online:
Westminster can receive donations by check:
Westminster Presbyterian Church
PO Box 3719
Trenton, NJ 08629
Prayer of Dedication
We offer our gifts in recognition that we are baptized people, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, we will hold nothing back but will share our lives, our hearts, our energies, as well as our efforts, in ministry to the world around us. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Closing Song
Benediction
The Lord be with you
And also with you
La paz de Dios sea con-ti-go
Y tam-bien con-ti-go
Sa-wa-bona
Si-ko-na
Pyeong-hwa
Pyeong-hwa