Welcome to MCCC Earth Day Worship Service! We are a community seeking to have Open Minds and Open Hearts and Open Arms...to live and love in the Name of the Risen Christ. Though apart, be encouraged! We are bound together through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We welcome everyone into this space and today I want to especially welcome a wonderful ministry of the Christian Church in Ohio -- Advance Conference. Advance is a ministry for young adults 19-29 that provides open space for growth and exploration of faith. We’re so glad you’re joining us.
Today we are recognizing EARTH DAY. At this point anyways, we have one planet to live, breathe, and play on and that is Earth. All of the Creation is a gift from God and we do well to take some time to remember that God’s signature is all over every nook and cranny. From atoms and molecules to mountains and oceans. Today we give thanks for the earth and hear God’s call to take care of it.
So then! Let’s prepare our minds and hearts for worship, let’s take a deep breath and Light a Candle.
Together we have set this time and space aside for the worship of God. Let’s give to God our joys, worries, and sorrows and open ourselves up to what God has to say to us today. Let us worship the Lord...
SCRIPTURE READING - Psalm 19:1-4 Frederic Vigne
OPENING HYMN All Things Bright and Beautiful (HYMNS folder)
Refrain:
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful:
in love God made them all.
1 Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
God made their glowing colors,
and made their tiny wings.
3 The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden,
God made them every one.
INTRODUCTION from ADVANCE CONFERENCE
CHILDREN’S MOMENT - Ally Hurd
PASTORAL PRAYER - Chad
Planet
Catherine Pierce
This morning this planet is covered by winds and blue.
This morning this planet glows with dustless perfect light,
enough that I can see one million sharp leaves
from where I stand. I walk on this planet, its hard-packed
dirt and prickling grass, and I don’t fall off. I come down
soft if I choose, hard if I choose. I never float away.
Sometimes I want to be weightless on this planet, and so
I wade into a brown river or dive through a wave
and for a while feel nothing under my feet. Sometimes
I want to hear what it was like before the air, and so I duck
under the water and listen to the muted hums. I’m ashamed
to say that most days I forget this planet. That most days
I think about dentist appointments and plagiarists
and the various ways I can try to protect my body from itself.
Last weekend I saw Jupiter through a giant telescope,
its storm stripes, four of its sixty-seven moons, and was filled
with fierce longing, bitter that instead of Ganymede or Europa,
I had only one moon floating in my sky, the moon
called Moon, its face familiar and stale. But this morning
I stepped outside and the wind nearly knocked me down.
This morning I stepped outside and the blue nearly
crushed me. This morning this planet is so loud with itself—
its winds, its insects, its grackles and mourning doves—
that I can hardly hear my own lamentations. This planet.
All its grooved bark, all its sand of quartz and bones
and volcanic glass, all its creeping thistle lacing the yards
with spiny purple. I’m trying to come down soft today.
I’m trying to see this place even as I’m walking through it.
Creator God, Mother and Father of us All,
Indeed we praise you for ALL the works of your Hands. We marvel at your glories seen in the huge and magnificent AND the tiny and fragile. Your wonders you have made fill us with awe and connect us more deeply to you and one another.
We confess to the Lord that we have walked HARD upon the earth. We have crushed and mangled, dirtied and discarded, been careless and unfeeling toward all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. Help us to want what you want, Lord. Help us to be good stewards and to remember that we belong to each other. We are all part of one world. Help us to see you, know you, feel you in and through the whole of your Creation. To live in harmony and faithfulness within it.
Today we lift to you Lord, the concerns and joys of our hearts. Today we are celebrating the Earth as a whole, but for some of us the world feels smaller because of a pain or grief we’re experiencing. Because of a struggle or conflict. We trust Lord you are present, walking with us through whatever we are going through. We lift to you now the Joys and Concerns of our hearts……
In the Name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit….Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING Genesis 1
SERMON Behold! Sarah Smith
HOLY COMMUNION - MaryEllen
Communion Song How Great Thou Art v. 1 & 2
1 O Lord my God! when I in awesome wonder
consider all the worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee;
how great thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee;
how great thou art, how great thou art!
2 When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze: [Refrain]
Meditation
Communion Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Words of Institution
As we gather around Christ’s Table we remember that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread and broke it, gave thanks and said to his Disciples, “This is my body which is given for you, eat of it all of you in remembrance of me.” Let’s Take the BREAD of Life together.
In like manner he took the cup and blessed it saying, “This is the cup of the new covenant in me, as often as you drink of it do so in remembrance of me.” Let’s pause and drink the Cup of Salvation.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s life, death, and resurrection until he comes again. Remember, all...ALL are welcome at the Lord’s Table.
(Share in the Bread and Cup together)
CLOSING SONG For the Beauty of the Earth v. 1-3 (HYMNS)
1 For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.
2 For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise
3 For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and mind's delight,
for the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight,
+
BENEDICTION - Sarah
POSTLUDE Since Jesus Came Into My Heart Arr. by Robert W. Thygerson Jan Green