PRELUDE/ENTRANCE
GREETING/ANNOUNCEMENTS
*OPENING SONG
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” UMH 519
*CALL TO WORSHIP
Liturgist: Children of God, what has God done for you?
People: God saves, provides, and holds us in God’s steadfast love.
Liturgist: Consider and remember: in the joyful times and in the sorrowful times, what has God done for you?
People: God covers us and lifts us up, protecting and empowering us with steadfast love.
Liturgist: When you have been like the fig tree in Jesus’ story that seems unable to produce and that everyone has given up on, what has God done for you?
People: God tends the soil and waters the ground, nurturing us into life with steadfast love.
Liturgist: Children of God, come, let us worship God who never gives up on us!
ALL: We come to worship and cling to God, for God’s steadfast love never fails!
Written by Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, September 2024.
OPENING PRAYER
Liturgist: We are wounded, worried, betrayed, afraid, and injured. We are physically, mentally, and emotionally challenged.
People: Drink from these waters and you will never thirst again.
Liturgist: We chase thrills, happiness, wealth, health, longevity, him, her, peace; the right job, the right look, anything to lessen our pain. We exhaust even ourselves with our efforts.
People: Drink from these waters and you will never thirst again.
Liturgist: We continue broken— day in and day out, hopelessly applying quick fixes. The pain will not subside. We are beckoned by an eternal yearning. We remember a prayer that grandmamma taught us; a lesson learned the hard way, or a word from the Word spoken by a sage. We long for relief, we seek it, search for it, yearn for it— relief that can’t be purchased or bartered.
ALL: Drink from these waters and never thirst again.
God we are grateful that your thoughts and your ways are higher than our own. Thank you for forgiving our sins. Thank you for new mercies each new day. Thank you for always welcoming us back into fellowship with you. Thank you for providing waters from which we may drink and never thirst again. Written by Toni Payne in The Africana Worship Book, Year C (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2008), 89.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION AND WORDS OF ASSURANCE
SHARING GOD’S PEACE
JOYS AND CONCERNS
THE LORD’S PRAYER
PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
A TIME FOR CHILDREN
SPECIAL MUSIC
FIRST SCRIPTURE 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
SECOND SCRIPTURE Numbers 11:4-6
MESSAGE “The Back to Egypt Committee”
RESPONSE TO THE WORD
*SONG OF RESPONSE
“Lead Me, Lord” UMH 473
*OFFERING OF OURSELVES
*”The Apostles’ Creed” UMH 881
*DOXOLOGY UMH 95
*PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
SENDING FORTH
*SONG OF DISMISSAL
“Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” UMH 361
*BENEDICTION
*PEACE
"God Be with You till We Meet Again" UMH 672
Verse 1