Living Waters
Welcome to the Mantua Center Christian Church
Prelude - I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say (Jan Green) [Lloyd Larson (tune: Kingsfold)]
We are a community seeking to have open minds, open hearts, and open arms, building community in a fragmented world.
- We want to welcome everyone who is in the house today, everyone online, and everyone downstairs watching our live telecast. We are grateful for all the many ways you can join us for worship on this Lord’s Day.
- Announcements will be on one sheet at the back of the sanctuary.
- Let’s prepare our hearts and minds for worship with our Opening Scripture Reading…
Opening Scripture - Psalm 42:1-5
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help 6and my God.
*Response - Weave
Weave, weave, weave us together,
Weave us together, in unity and love.
Weave, weave, weave us together,
weave us together, together in love.
*Call to Worship - Roger Cram
ONE: Come, all who are thirsty says Jesus, our Lord,
ALL: come, all who are weak, taste the living water that I shall give.
ONE: Dip your hands in the stream, refresh body and soul,
ALL: drink from it, depend on it, for this water will never run dry.
ONE: Come, all who are thirsty says Jesus, our Lord.
ALL: Thanks be to God!
By John Birch
Opening Hymn - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty #25
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
who rules all creation.
O my soul, worship the well-spring
of health and salvation.
All ye who hear,
now to God’s temple draw near.
Join me in glad adoration
Invitation to Generosity - Roger Cram
Children’s Moment - Ally Bozeka
Pastoral Prayer - Rev. Chad Delaney
Communion
Meditation - Drema Herron
Communion Hymn - Fill My Cup, Lord #351
Like the woman at the well
I was seeking for things that could not satisfy;
and then I heard my Savior speaking;
“Draw from my well that never shall run dry”
Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;
Bread of Heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more -
fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!
Prayer & Lord’s Prayer - Drema Herron
Words of Institution - Rev. Chad Delaney
Prayer of Illumination
Scripture - John 4:1-42
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’
Sermon - "Living Water", Rev. Chad Delaney
Closing Hymn - Where He Leads Me #346
I can hear my Savior calling, I can hear my Savior calling,
I can hear my Savior calling, “Take my cross and follow, follow me.”
He will give me grace and glory, he will give me grace and glory,
He will give me grace and glory, and go with me, with me all the way.
Benediction - Rev. Chad Delaney
Postlude - All Things Bright and Beautiful (Jan Green) [Lani Smith (tune: Royal Oak)]