In Person and Livestream Worship Service—a service to souls!
Westport Presbyterian Church—The Phoenix is rising!
October 16, 2022, 11:00 am
(Video will be posted LIVE on the church’s FB page at 11am and then cross-posted here. If the video doesn’t load properly here, you should be able to click on the Watch on Facebook link and watch as a guest)
PRELUDE: Partita no. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825: Praeludium—J. S. Bach
CALL TO RETURN TO OUR SOULS
Leader: There are disasters and catastrophes
People: Which we cannot recover from on our own strength.
Leader: There are storms that blow up in the course of our lives
People: That will kill us if we try to stop them by our own power.
Leader: We know that only a Higher, Wiser Power
People: Can make a way out of no way.
Leader: That is why we pray: Into Your Hands, God,
People: For I can no longer, by myself stand.
Leader: That is why we pray in the Lord’s prayer:
People: Forgive us our debts and Deliver us from evil!
Leader: The reason Jesus told people to leave self behind, take up your cross and follow him is—Jesus knew that the biggest ego on the planet—is still so tiny that if God were a gumball machine, a million-million of them would fit inside it.
People: We only see a partial reality
Leader: In this hour, let us engage the Whole Reality.
HYMN: I Love to Tell the Story GTG #462
CALL TO CONFESSION AND COMMITMENT
Pastor: I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness.
People: Quietness is a great ally, friends. As long as we keep our poise, we will Do nothing to make bad matters worse.
Pastor: God grant me the sense of proportion to judge the difference between an incident and a crisis.”
People: We, ignorant of ourselves, beg often our own harms,
Pastor: We may think we can change the things around us according to our desires,
People: But when a solution does come,
Pastor: We find it was our desires that had changed.
People: Jesus, keep teaching us to become the souls we are. Amen.
SUNG PRAYER FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS TO EMBRACE US: Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me GTG #703
BIBLE READINGS: Jeremiah 31:31-34 Luke 13: 22-24 Matthew 7:12-14
ANTHEM: Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies—setting by Kyle Johnson
RESPONSE:
Leader: May the words of my mouth
People: And the meditations of our hearts
Leader: Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord,
People: Our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
SERMON : Try That Narrow Door!
HYMN: Will You Let Me Be Your Servant GTG #727
WELCOMING
PRAYER: Matthew 25 Prayer, Lord’s Prayer,
Congregational Sung Response: Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying(sing twice) GTG #469
OFFERTORY: The Lord’s Prayer—Alfred Hay Malotte; Luke Gilmore, tenor
Offering link
RESPONSIVE PRAYER OF DEDICATION
Leader: All beings are words of God.
People: God’s music, God’s art.
Leader: Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps in our souls.
People: Every act reveals God and expands God’s being.
Leader: I know that may be hard to comprehend.
People: All creatures are doing their best to help God in the birth of God.
Leader: Enough talk for the night.
People: God is laboring in me;
Leader: I need to be quiet for a while,
People: Worlds are forming in my heart.
—Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic
HYMN: What a Friend We Have in Jesus GTG #465
BENEDICTION
SUNG BENEDICTION RESPONSE: Jesus, Remember Me (sing twice) GTG #227
POSTLUDE: How Firm a Foundation—Early American Hymn, setting by Marianne Kim
CHURCH AND COMMUNITY NEWS
• We are planning a FRIENDSGIVING Pot Luck Meal after church on Sunday, November 13. Time to reconnect with fellow Westport Presbies, friends and families. Mark your calendars. More info later on what to bring.
• Thanks to everyone making Westport Showers happen on Sunday and Thursday and Westport Weekday Food Refuge every weekday. We are grateful for your support, and we praise God for your faithfulness. We need men’s pants, length, 32-34, all waist sizes. Men’s shoes sizes 10-14. Thank you.
• Join us in joining St. James Missionary Baptist Church (43rd St and Pennsylvania) in celebrating their 152nd anniversary this afternoon, 1:30-2:30 p.m. We are also supporting this by creating a Steptoe/Church reenactment with actors Granvile O’Neal, Brother John Anderson and Paulette Dawn (Rev Carmanita in recent WCA play). The historic Steptoe neighborhood/Black Westport is where freed, previously enslaved people created a community that still needs to be honored and preserved.
• Micah Rose Emerson and Rev Scott are having a ZOOM Anti-Racism Dialogue this coming Thursday, October 20, 6 pm. The topic is Black Excellence, which will emerge as a complex subject with both powerful and painful dimensions. If you want to join in this 75 minute dialogue, ask Rev Scott for the ZOOM link.
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