Order of Service / Joint Sunday Service / May 17, 2026

Joint Sunday Service: Singing Our Faith Together


Gathering Hymns

This Is the Day (#412 VU)

I Danced in the Morning (#352 VU)

How Great Thou Art (#238 VU | vs. 1&4)

Welcome & Announcements

Lighting the Christ Candle

Call to Worship

One: God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description.

All: Yet, in love, God seeks relationship.

One: God creates, tends, and enlivens the universe.

All: Grateful for God’s loving action, we cannot keep from singing.

*Adapted for A Song of Faith

Opening Prayer

*Opening Hymn God Who Gives Life (VU 260)

We Sing: An Introduction

Today we will worship through scripture, words from A Song of Faith, and many favourite hymns of our congregation. A Song of Faith is one of the statements of faith of The United Church of Canada. It reminds us that faith is not only something we say, but also something we sing, share, and live. Our service will follow five themes: God, Human Life, the Spirit, Jesus, and Hope. In each part, we will listen to scripture, hear words from A Song of Faith, and sing together. As we sing, may these hymns become prayers of gratitude, trust, grace, and hope.

 

God: Creation and Gratitude

Scripture Reading: Psalm 8

Reading from A Song of Faith

God is creative and self-giving,

   generously moving

   in all the near and distant corners of the universe.

Nothing exists that does not find its source in God.

Our first response to God’s providence is gratitude.

We sing thanksgiving.

 

Finding ourselves in a world of beauty and mystery,

   of living things, diverse and interdependent,

   of complex patterns of growth and evolution,

   of subatomic particles and cosmic swirls,

we sing of God the Creator,

the Maker and Source of all that is.

 

Each part of creation reveals unique aspects of God the Creator,

   who is both in creation and beyond it.

All parts of creation, animate and inanimate, are related.

All creation is good.

We sing of the Creator,

   who made humans to live and move

   and have their being in God.

Sung Psalm: Psalm 42 (VU 766) As the Deer Pants for the Water

 

Human Life: Brokenness and Grace

Scripture Reading: Luke 15:4–7

Reading from A Song of Faith

Made in the image of God,

we yearn for the fulfillment that is life in God.

Yet we choose to turn away from God.

We surrender ourselves to sin,

   a disposition revealed in selfishness, cowardice, or apathy.

Becoming bound and complacent

   in a web of false desires and wrong choices,

   we bring harm to ourselves and others.

This brokenness in human life and community

   is an outcome of sin.

Sin is not only personal

   but accumulates

   to become habitual and systemic forms

   of injustice, violence, and hatred.

 

We are all touched by this brokenness:

   the rise of selfish individualism

         that erodes human solidarity;

   the concentration of wealth and power

         without regard for the needs of all;

   the toxins of religious and ethnic bigotry;

   the degradation of the blessedness of human bodies

         and human passions through sexual exploitation;

   the delusion of unchecked progress and limitless growth

   that threatens our home, the earth;

   the covert despair that lulls many into numb complicity

   with empires and systems of domination.

We sing lament and repentance.

 

Yet evil does not—cannot—

   undermine or overcome the love of God.

God forgives,

   and calls all of us to confess our fears and failings

   with honesty and humility.

God reconciles,

   and calls us to repent the part we have played

   in damaging our world, ourselves, and each other.

God transforms,

   and calls us to protect the vulnerable,

   to pray for deliverance from evil,

   to work with God for the healing of the world,

   that all might have abundant life.

We sing of grace.

Hymn: Amazing Grace (VU 266 |vs. 1,2,5)

 

Time for God’s Children Name That Hymn

This is an activity to identify hymns. You will listen to a very short opening part of a hymn. When you recognize the title of the hymn, please raise your hand.

 

The Spirit: Breath of Life

Scripture Reading: Romans 8:26–27

Reading from A Song of Faith

The fullness of life includes

   moments of unexpected inspiration and courage lived out,

   experiences of beauty, truth, and goodness,

   blessings of seeds and harvest,

         friendship and family, intellect and sexuality,

   the reconciliation of persons through justice

         and communities living in righteousness,

         and the articulation of meaning.

And so we sing of God the Spirit,

         who from the beginning has swept over the face of creation,

         animating all energy and matter

         and moving in the human heart.

 

We sing of God the Spirit,

   faithful and untameable,

   who is creatively and redemptively active in the world.

 

The Spirit challenges us to celebrate the holy

   not only in what is familiar,

   but also in that which seems foreign.

 

We sing of the Spirit,

   who speaks our prayers of deepest longing

   and enfolds our concerns and confessions,

   transforming us and the world.

Hymn: Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness (VU 375 |vs. 1&4)

 

Jesus Christ: Saviour

Scripture Reading: Philippians 2:1–9

Anthem

Reading from A Song of Faith

We sing of Jesus,

   a Jew,

   born to a woman in poverty

   in a time of social upheaval

   and political oppression.

He knew human joy and sorrow.

So filled with the Holy Spirit was he

that in him people experienced the presence of God among them.

We sing praise to God incarnate.

 

Jesus announced the coming of God’s reign—

   a commonwealth not of domination

   but of peace, justice, and reconciliation.

He healed the sick and fed the hungry.

He forgave sins and freed those held captive

   by all manner of demonic powers.

He crossed barriers of race, class, culture, and gender.

He preached and practised unconditional love—

   love of God, love of neighbour,

   love of friend, love of enemy—

and he commanded his followers to love one another

   as he had loved them.

 

Because his witness to love was threatening,

   those exercising power sought to silence Jesus.

He suffered abandonment and betrayal,

   state-sanctioned torture and execution.

He was crucified.

 

But death was not the last word.

God raised Jesus from death,

   turning sorrow into joy,

   despair into hope.

We sing of Jesus raised from the dead.

We sing hallelujah.

Hymn: Jesus, You Have Come to the Lakeshore (VU 563 |vs. 1&2)

Reading from A Song of Faith

By becoming flesh in Jesus,

   God makes all things new.

In Jesus’ life, teaching, and self-offering,

   God empowers us to live in love.

In Jesus’ crucifixion,

   God bears the sin, grief, and suffering of the world.

In Jesus’ resurrection,

   God overcomes death.

Nothing separates us from the love of God.

 

The Risen Christ lives today,

   present to us and the source of our hope.

In response to who Jesus was

   and to all he did and taught,

   to his life, death, and resurrection,

   and to his continuing presence with us through the Spirit,

we celebrate him as

   the Word made flesh,

   the one in whom God and humanity are perfectly joined,

   the transformation of our lives,

the Christ.

Hymn: The Old Rugged Cross (vs. 1&2)

 

*Offering

*Offertory Hymn Make Me a Channel of Your Peace (VU 684 | v. 1&3)

*Offertory Prayer (Unison)
 Generous God, receive these gifts and the love behind them. Use them to comfort, to heal, to welcome, and to serve. May our giving become part of your song of hope in the world. Amen.

Prayers of the People and Lord’s Prayer

 

Hope: We Cannot Keep from Singing

Scripture Reading: Revelation 21:1-4

Reading from A Song of Faith

We place our hope in God.

We sing of a life beyond life

   and a future good beyond imagining:

   a new heaven and a new earth,

   the end of sorrow, pain, and tears,

   Christ’s return and life with God,

   the making new of all things.

We yearn for the coming of that future,

even while participating in eternal life now.

 

Divine creation does not cease

   until all things have found wholeness, union, and integration

   with the common ground of all being.

As children of the Timeless One,

   our time-bound lives will find completion

   in the all-embracing Creator.

In the meantime, we embrace the present,

   embodying hope, loving our enemies,

   caring for the earth,

choosing life.

 

Grateful for God’s loving action,

   we cannot keep from singing.

Creating and seeking relationship,

   in awe and trust,

we witness to Holy Mystery who is Wholly Love.

Hymn: In the Garden (vs. 1&2)

*Commissioning

One: Go now as people held by Holy Mystery.

  All: We go with gratitude and trust.

One: Go now as followers of Jesus Christ.

  All: We go to love what he loved and live what he taught.

One: Go now in the power of the Spirit.

  All: We go to comfort, serve, welcome, and share hope.

One: Grateful for God’s loving action,

  All: we cannot keep from singing. Amen.

*Commissioning Song I, the Lord of Sea and Sky (VU 509 |vs. 1&2)

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