09/02/2026
Our Mission: To Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World
Saturday, September 5, 2026
6:30 PM
(* -indicates that you are invited to stand, if you are able and comfortable in standing)
QUIET MEDITATION
âYou and I have received the gift of faith and are seeking to nourish that gift. â ~Sebastian Gomes
CALL TO WORSHIP
One: Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
All: we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
One: that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised.
All: Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
*HYMN: âStand Up, Stand Up for Jesusâ (UMH #514)
OPENING PRAYER
Give us eyes to see, O God: to see as you see, and to see those people you see. Remind us that you have called us to be a sent-out people, not a stay-put people. Help us to move beyond the stained glass, into the world you love and for which Christ died. Amen.
RESPONSIVE READING Psalm 145:17-18:
The Lord is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The Lord is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
SCRIPTURE READING
A reading from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 6-15:
Brothers and sisters: Learn from myself and Apollos not to go beyond what is written, so that none of you will be inflated with pride in favor of one person over against another. Who confers distinction upon you? What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it? You are already satisfied; you have already grown rich; you have become kings without us! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we also might become kings with you.
For as I see it, God has exhibited us Apostles as the last of all, like people sentenced to death, since we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and men alike. We are fools on Christâs account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the worldâs rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.
I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.
*Please stand as you are able as we sing together the
âGloria Patriâ:
Glory be to the Father
and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen. Amen.
*GOSPEL READING
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 6, verses 1-5:
While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath, his disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, âWhy are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?â Jesus said to them in reply, âHave you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?â Then he said to them, âThe Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.â
One: This is the word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God! Amen.
SERMON: Rev. Dr. Timothy Nicinski
SHARING OUR CELEBRATIONS AND CONCERNS
PASTORAL PRAYER
SHARING THE COMMUNITY CROSS
THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION
(see Hymnal page 12)
All are invited to share at our table
*HYMN: "Seek Ye First" (UMH #405)
*BENEDICTION
FREE WILL OFFERING
