Welcome to our service - 25 October
This service sheet can be used individually or with households.
We would encourage you to say (or even sing) hymns and songs out loud.
Prayers, other liturgy or readings can be said out loud or silently, corporately or individually.
If you are able, we would also like invite you to join us for our main Sunday service, 10am, live on Zoom. Even if you have never been to St Gabriel’s before we would love you to join you. Please get in touch with the vicar Alistair (vicar@saintgs.co.uk) and he will send you the Zoom details.
Notices
Please join us this Sunday for a socially distanced and COVID-19 compliant unsung Holy Communion service at 11:30am. We ask you to come with a face mask.
SERVICE
Opening
Loving God, we have come to worship you.
Help us to pray to you in faith,
to sing your praise with gratitude,
and to listen to your word with eagerness;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
SING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hmfqe_8SEI
Love divine, all loves excelling,
joy of heaven, to earth come down,
fix in us Thy humble dwelling,
all Thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
pure unbounded love Thou art;
visit us with Thy salvation,
enter every trembling heart.
2. Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit
into every troubled breast;
let us all in Thee inherit,
let us find Thy promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning,
Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith, as its beginning,
set our hearts at liberty.
3. Come, almighty to deliver,
let us all Thy grace receive;
suddenly return, and never,
never more Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
glory in Thy perfect love.
4. Finish then Thy new creation:
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see Thy great salvation,
perfectly restored in Thee:
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee,
lost in wonder, love and praise.
Words: Charles Wesley (1707-88)
Music: William P Rowlands (1860-1937)
CONFESSION
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Let us come to the Lord, who is full of compassion, and acknowledge our transgressions in penitence and faith.
God our Father,
long-suffering, full of grace and truth,
you create us from nothing and give us life.
You give your faithful people new life in the water
of baptism.
You do not turn your face from us,
nor cast us aside.
We confess that we have sinned
against you and our neighbour.
We have wounded your love and marred your image in us.
Restore us for the sake of your Son,
and bring us to heavenly joy,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
ASOLUTION
Almighty God,
who in Jesus Christ has given us
a kingdom that cannot be destroyed,
forgive us our sins,
open our eyes to God’s truth,
strengthen us to do God’s will
and give us the joy of his kingdom,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
COLLECT
God, our light and our salvation:
illuminate our lives,
that we may see your goodness in the land of the living,
and looking on your beauty
may be changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
SING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnWKehsOXu8
Blessed be your name
in the land that is plentiful,
Where your streams of abundance flow,
blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name
when I’m found in the desert place,
Though I walk through the wilderness,
blessed be your name.
Every blessing you pour out
I’ll turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in,
Lord, still I will say,
‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,
blessed be your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
blessed be your glorious name.’
Blessed be your name
when the sun’s shining down on me,
When the world’s ‘all as it should be,
blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name
on the road marked with suffering,
Though there’s pain in the offering,
blessed be your name.
Every blessing you pour out
I’ll turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in,
Lord, still I will say,
‘Blessed be…………
You give and take away,
you give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
‘Lord blessed be your name.’
‘Blessed be…………
Beth & Matt Redman ©2002 Thankyou Music
READINGS
Psalm 103: 1 - 12 New International Version
Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
John 4:1-26 New International Version
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
TALK written by Catherine Stevenson
Becoming the blessing our community needs
Today we come to the end of our sermon series based on ‘The Blessings Course’. The theme for today is ‘Blessing Areas, Regions and Nations’, but I’m going to focus in on blessing our area, because today is also Stewardship Sunday. So this is the main Sunday in the year when we consider together how we might collectively resource the mission and calling that God has placed upon us here, as His body in Greystones.
First of all, let me draw us back to the passage we heard from John, chapter 4. In this account, we read that Jesus met a Samaritan woman by a well at midday, and he asks her for a drink. What follows is an extraordinary conversation in which Jesus explains that what he has to offer is of infinitely greater value than the water in the well. Let’s remember he’s speaking to her during the hottest part of the day in a very hot country. It’s likely that they were both be feeling physically thirsty, but Jesus speaks of a different kind of thirst, a thirst which only he could quench. In verses 13-14 he says:
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Like the Samaritan woman, we need to hear this truth today: that what Jesus offers people cannot be found anywhere else. There is no drink, food, drug, job, salary, hobby, experience or relationship that will satisfy our deepest needs, in the way Jesus can. This is why so often people without faith feel lost or dissatisfied. They have, what some Christians describe as ‘a God-shaped hole’ in their lives. Jesus is the only one who can satisfy.
Later in the passage Jesus makes it very clear that the reason he can offer something unique is because he himself is unique. In verse 25 the Samaritan woman speaks of ‘the Messiah to come’, and Jesus responds, “I am he”. The reason why Jesus can satisfy our deepest need, is because he is God. He created us, he knows us better than anyone, and he is the only one who can show us the perfect, unconditional love that we all need.
Jesus is also the ultimate answer to the deeper needs of our community, and in fact the whole world. We have received Jesus; we have been blessed by Him, and we know the difference he makes to our lives. The natural response - the response Jesus desires from us - is to share what we have experienced with others, so that they too may come to know Him.
In the summer of 2018 we went as a family to a big Christian festival called ‘Naturally Supernatural’. I learnt a number of things during that week, one of which was that unless we’re doing it for Jesus, we shouldn’t camp again until our kids are much older! But far more importantly, I learnt some valuable lessons about mission and evangelism from a young couple who are the Senior Pastors of big Vineyard church in Northern Ireland. Speaking of their priorities as a church, they said during a seminar:
“If it doesn’t bring us to the lost, or the lost to Jesus, we don’t do it.”
To be honest, I was pretty blown away by that statement. Immediately I was thinking ‘well, what about Bible Study groups and discipleship and fellowship between the church family’. But their belief is that Christians grow by serving. It’s a bold strategy, and not necessarily the right one for us. But it does raise an important point. Are we being proactive in seeking ‘the lost’?
Our experience of joining St Gabriel’s as a family over two years ago (before Alistair became Vicar), was massively positive. Of course it’s harder during a pandemic, but St Gabriel’s is a very warm and welcoming church family. When new people come through our doors they are noticed, welcomed, received well, looked out for. Our ‘reactive evangelism’ is about how we respond to those who come through our doors, and how we help draw them towards faith in Jesus. In contrast to this, our ‘proactive evangelism’ is about the people who don’t come to us; it’s the ones who we see outside the church building. How can we bring Jesus to them? Sometimes it happens naturally through long-established relationships, but sometimes we need to put ourselves in positions where we will come into contact with new people. This certainly takes me out of my comfort zone, and you may feel the same. As Alistair challenged us two weeks ago - if we are going to be the church God is calling us to be, we’re all going to need to be push out of our comfort zones to a place of faith and trust. And it also highlights the need for prayer, particularly that God would give us boldness as we step out in faith.
At the end of the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, we see her response. She goes back to her town and tells people about her experience of Jesus, saying “ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?””. She is proactive in her mission and the result is that many from her town come and see for themselves. Jesus stays there for two days and many come to faith in him. We too are called simply to go and tell others about our experience of Jesus, and what he’s done for us.
Two weeks ago Alistair explained that we are Blessed to be a blessing. We reflected together on the prayer those early Christians prayed when Peter and John were released from prison. They prayed for a renewed boldness to fulfil the calling Jesus had placed on their lives to tell the world about him, no matter the cost.
As our world, our country and our area face a global pandemic, perhaps now more than ever we need to show how much we care about those around us, because we know that God cares. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to step up, rather than stepping back. So today, as we come to the end of the Blessings Course, we want to become more proactive in blessing our community in word and deed, so that they might encounter the love of Jesus.
Today I am so excited that we are launching a new initiative called ‘Bless Greystones’, which is all about love in action and reaching the lost in the name of Jesus. A couple of weeks ago Alistair shared the vision of the church as a blessing to this community, and ‘Bless Greystones’ will be the start of how that vision is outworked. This is our PROACTIVE mission. It will involve both events and projects. Events are things we put on for the community, like our annual Holiday Club, the Advent Drop-in we ran last year, but also the groups which are more regular (or will be when they can re-start), like the Playmates group and EPIC. It will also involve us getting out into our community to find out what the needs are, and serving people who we may otherwise never meet. These will be the Bless Greystones team projects. We want to build a team who are willing to give of their time and skills, perhaps once a month or every other month, to show practical love to the people of Greystones, but we will also need people to be our eyes and ears - people who are receptive to the needs of those around them and willing to offer help through the Bless Greystones team. Although many of the projects and events may not cost us much to run, we will need some level of funding, so financial support is important too. And perhaps most importantly, we need prayer support and lots of it. Nothing we do will succeed without the help of God, and so every time we run an event or project, we would love to have members of our church family committing the work to God and asking for him to be present and at work through his Holy Spirit. I can’t stress enough how important this is. So if you have a dodgy back or your health is a concern, there’s no reason you can’t be a part of what we do, through prayer.
In time, we hope everyone in Greystones will be impacted by the love of Jesus and drawn to him - even those who would never come to church - because they have seen that love in action, through his people, through us. In all this, our motivation and goal must be Jesus. Alistair showed us an image two weeks ago showing blessing flowing out from Jesus, through us into the community, and this process drawing people back to Jesus. The arrow goes in both directions. As we saw in the passage in John, what Jesus has to offer humanity is unique. His transforming love can be found nowhere else. And this is why we don’t want to become just another charity shop front. Like many charities, we do want to serve people, but our motivation and goal must always be Jesus, because his transforming love can be found nowhere else and is more important that anything else we can offer people.
We’ve put a new page up on our website which gives more information about the Bless Greystones initiative and we’d really encourage you to have a look. It’s under the ‘get involved’ tab, or if you simply google ‘bless greystones’ it should be at the top of the list.
Alistair’s going to be speaking to us a bit more about investing in the vision of the church. If you’ve read the Stewardship letter he sent out this week, you’ll know that we are in financial need - we have a large deficit and are facing increased costs next year. Some of you may have been hit financially by the pandemic, and if this is you, please don’t feel you need to increase your financial giving at all. We want to bless you and support YOU in this time. We do not want to add to your financial burdens. But we also know that for some households, there is financial security, and perhaps with less spending this year, you might be in a better position to give. Ultimately, this is between you and God. But in light of what we’ve been thinking about this morning, I would encourage you to consider not ‘how much am I willing to give?’ but rather, ‘how much do I want to invest in this vision?’
THE APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand
of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen
O LORD, HEAR MY PRAYER,
O Lord, hear my prayer:
When I call answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer:
Come and listen to me.
Jacques Berthier/Taizé.
Copyright © 1982 Ateliers et Presses de Taize (France).
PRAYERS - written by Liz Cannell
Heavenly Father we give thanks that we can bring our anxieties to you in prayer knowing that in your love for mankind you listen to our concerns. We pray for our troubled world, for guidance for the authorities in all nations, who bear great responsibilities and from whom so much is expected. We pray for those affected by the pandemic, the uncertainties of how best to deal with it, to balance the health of individuals with jobs and livelihoods, and particularly about the impact on those least able to cope. We pray too for the discussions over Brexit. In spite of differences, may there be an acknowledgement especially at this time, of the need for cooperation and compromise in many areas, not only with European partners but across the world.
On Stewardship Sunday we give thanks for the skills, time and money, and other gifts that are offered in the service of the Church and to others. We ask your blessing on our church, for the clergy in their many roles, and for the ministry and leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the new Archbishop of York. We pray for Alistair and Catherine, the PCC and those involved in the sub-groups as they use their gifts to share ideas and suggestions for the church and wider community of Greystones. We pray for many who at this time are looking to the church for comfort and hope. May St Gabriels be a focal point to show God's love.
We continue to pray and give thanks for all who are involved in the NHS, that hospitals will have the the capacity and staff to care for those who need it. We remember too all who, in providing the day to day services needed in healthcare, food, transport and much more, all taking extra time and in difficult circumstances, ensure our daily lives run as smoothly as possible. With the coming of winter and more restrictions we pray for those who feel isolated and those we know who are unwell.
Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy
in this time of uncertainty and distress.
Sustain and support the anxious and fearful,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may rejoice in your comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us
from your love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen
SING:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJq3bhdgQoc
Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in our hearts,
shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church
gathered today.
Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has power to save us.
Make us your living voice.
Christ, be our light!
Christ, be our light...
Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.
Christ, be our light...
Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others,
walls made of living stone.
Christ, be our light...
Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come.
Christ, be our light...
Bernadette Farrell © 1993 OCP Publications
OFFERTORY - Take a moment to consider how you are going to continue to give to the life of the church and support other aid agencies and mission organisations.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power,
the glory, the splendour, and the majesty;
for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.
All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.
SING:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp2qNGx2tlE
Sing to God new songs of worship –
all his deeds are marvellous;
He has brought salvation to us
with his hand and holy arm:
He has shown to all the nations
righteousness and saving power;
He recalled his truth and mercy
to his people Israel.
2. Sing to God new songs of worship –
earth has seen his victory;
let the lands of earth be joyful
praising him with thankfulness:
sound upon the harp his praises,
play to him with melody;
let the trumpets sound his triumph,
show your joy to God the king!
3. Sing to God new songs of worship –
let the sea now make a noise;
all on earth and in the waters
sound your praises to the Lord:
let the hills rejoice together,
let the rivers clap their hands,
for with righteousness and justice
He will come to judge the earth.
From Psalm 98
© Michael Baughen/Jubilate Hymns
Music: L Van Beethoven
FINAL BLESSING:
Throughout these 7 weeks, as we explore the Blessings Course, we are going to finish our services with this blessing from Numbers 6. I would encourage you to say it firstly over yourself and then, if you are willing and able, to stretch out a hand towards your street and neighbourhood and to declare this blessing over the people in your community:
The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face towards you
and give you peace.
And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among us and remain with us always. Amen