11am Traditional Worship, 9-22-24

Welcome & Announcements

Call to Worship – (#456 BOW)

Leader:  Come to Christ, that living stone, rejected by the world, but in God’s sight chosen and precious.

Cong:  We have responded to Christ’s call, and seek to be built into a spiritual house, a living reminder of God’s presence on earth.     

Leader:  Once we were no people, but now we are God’s people, called out of the darkness into God’s marvelous light. Therefore we sing with the Church in all ages. 

Cong:   Blessed be your name, O God, our Redeemer. By your mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Opening Prayer (Unison): O Lord our God, we come to you as mere children.  Be with us and teach us as we learn to see one another with new eyes, and to hear one another with new hearts and treat one another in new ways of grace.  Amen. 

Psalter #738  Psalm 1 w/ Response # 1

Response #1:  Walk in the light of God’s counsel; delight in the law of the Lord.

Leader:  Blessed are those who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked; 

Cong.: or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers;

Leader: but their delight is in the law of the Lord, 

Cong.: and on God’s law they meditate day and night.

Leader: They are like trees planted by streams of water that yield their fruit in season, and their leaves do not wither.

Cong.: In all that they do, they prosper. (Response)

Leader:  The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Cong.:  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment; nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

Leader: for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

Cong.: but the way of the wicked will perish. (Response)

Hymn #407 UMH – Close to Thee

Children’s Moment

1st Scripture Reading – James 3: 13 – 4:3, 7-10 NRSV

Special Music – John Robison, violin – Simple Gifts

2nd Scripture Reading – Mark 9:30-37 NRSV

Message – Pure Wisdom – Rev. L. Bryan McClain

Offertory / Doxology UMH #95 

Pastoral Prayer / Lord’s Prayer

Hymn #2196 TFWS – We Walk by Faith

Benediction

Postlude