A Thanksgiving Service—Celebrating Many Streams of Gratitude— November 22, 2020 11:00 am (Printable PDF)
(Video will be posted LIVE on the church’s FB page at 11am. Livestream will be cross-posted here ASAP once the livestream starts)
INTROIT: Cherokee Morning Song
CALL TO WORSHIP
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year
defending us with God’s guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad
and vouchsafing to us in God’s mercy, many and signal victories over the enemy
who is of our own household.
It has also pleased our Heavenly God to favor as well our citizens in their homes,
our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health.
God has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration,
while opening to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our working people in every department of industry with abundant rewards.
Moreover, Almighty God has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage
and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity,
and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.
Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do hereby appoint and set apart
a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God,
the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.
—Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1864
HYMN: We Gather Together (#336 Glory to God) A hymn originating in the Netherlands’ celebration of winning freedom from the Spanish empire
CONFESSION & COMMITMENT:
We are instructed to make every decision
on behalf of the seventh generation to come.
We are instructed to give thanks for All That Sustains Us.
We are instructed to be generous
and to share equally with our brothers and sisters
so that all may be content.
We are instructed to respect and love our Elders,
to serve them in their declining years, to cherish one another.
We are instructed to love our children, indeed, to love ALL children.
Even though you and I are in different boats,
you in your boat and we in our canoe,
we share the same River of Life.
What befalls me, befalls you.
And downstream, in this River of Life,
our children will pay for our selfishness,
for our greed, and for our lack of vision.
We can still alter our course. It is NOT too late.
We still have options.
We need the courage to change our values
to the regeneration of our families,
the life that surrounds us.
We must join hands with the rest of Creation
and speak of Common Sense,
Responsibility, Brotherhood, and PEACE.
On behalf of the Indigenous People of the Great Turtle Island,
I give my appreciation and thanks.
Dah ney’ to. Now I am finished.
We love I hi do’ hah (I-hee-DOE-hah!)
our Mother Earth.
–Chief Oren Lyons (Haudenosaunee/Iroquois), from his address to the United Nations at the outset of the Year of Indigenous Peoples, December 10, 1992
HYMN: Heleluyan (#595 Blue Presbyterian Hymnal)
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 100, 111, 146
HYMN: Now Thank We All Our God (#643 Glory to God)
SERMON: A Gratitude Attitude Will Lift You to a Higher Altitude!
CHORAL ANTHEM: Zion’s Walls— Aaron Copland
WELCOME
INTERCESSORY PRAYER: — with comments by people on FB (You can also email prayer requests to info@westportpresbyterian.org during office hours)
the Lord’s Prayer
SUNG RESPONSE: Jesus, We Are Here (#392)
1. English: Jesus We Are here
2.Teacher, We Are Here
Shona: Jesu tawa pano
OFFERTORY SOLO: Ein Schwan (A Swan) Text: Henrik Ibsen; music, Edvard Grieg, sung by Emma WitbolsFeugen, mezzo soprano (see PDF at top for rough translation)
Offering link
PRAYER OF DEDICATION:
Today, we send our offerings out to do God’s work—
within us, among us—beyond us
May our offerings become a more vivid sign of our gratitude—
for the simple things of our days:
fresh air to breathe, cool water to drink,
the taste of food, the comforts of home.
We bring to mind all the warmth of humankind
that we have known:
the strength of parents and grandparents,
playmates of our childhood,
wonderful stories brought to us
from the lives of many who talked of days gone by
when fairies and giants and all kinds of wonder held sway:
the tears we have shed,
the tears we have seen;
the excitement of laughter
and the twinkle in the eye
with its reminder that life is good.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day,
offering to You, Dear God,
what you have already lovingly blessed. Amen.
–adapted from Howard Thurman, A Litany of Thanksgiving
HYMN: Over My Head (Sing the Faith#2148)
BLESSING:
Grandparent, Great Mystery,
once more behold us on earth
and lean to hear our feeble voices.
You lived first, and you are older than all need,
older than all prayer.
All things belong to you
the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds,
the wings of the air and all green things that live.
Day in and day out, forever,
you are the life of things.
Therefore, we are sending a voice, Great Mystery, our Grandparent,
forgetting nothing you have made,
the stars of the universe and the grasses of the earth.
The Great Spirit is everywhere;
The Great Spirit hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts.
And it is not necessary to speak to The Great Spirit in a loud voice.
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
You have set the powers of the four directions to cross each other.
The good road and the road of difficulties
you have made to cross;
and where they cross,
the place is holy.–adapted from the words of Black Elk, an Olglala Lakota who survived both the Battle of Little Big Horn (at age 12) and the Massacre of Wounded Knee (at age 26).
SUNG BENEDICTION RESPONSE: Lead Me, Guide Me (sing twice) #740
POSTLUDE: Many and Great— Dakota hymn (Lac qui parle)—setting by John Ferguson
Participants:
Pastor- Scott Myers
Piano- Emily Davidson
Choir- Josh Stark, Neil Long, Jennifer Weiman, Em WitbolsFeugen
Camera/Facebook/Prayer requests: Deanna Capps
Webpage- Martine Roesel
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