May 29, 2022
WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE
PRELUDE
CALL TO WORSHIP
Christians from early days found Christ in showing hospitality….
So we too offer and receive a warm welcome.
The Celts of old gathered round hearths to share stories,
eat and drink, and keep warm…
the people of the Pacific also have their rituals of welcome and hospitality…
So we also gather together.
People of all lands and times join in circles of community.
So we make a circle of community today,
creating a place of openness and listening;
to see with new eyes;
to make space for encounter;
and to catch a glimpse of God.
SILENCE
PROCESSIONAL HYMN ‘Great God of all time’
Words: © 1992 Shirley Erena Murray (Admin. by Hope Publishing Company)
Music: Laudate Dominum WOV 83
1. Great God of all time, this moment we claim
to sing of your love, to honour your name –
the Presence who breathed us, gave life to our void,
a bush ever burning, yet never destroyed.
2. Great God of our land, the Christ Spirit known –
our flaxroots of faith in staunch seed were sown,
through strong men and women, your agents for good,
the heartwood of forests sure-planted has stood.
3. Great God of our Church, our home, our marae,
the place where we learn to live and to die,
here gathered at table our hungers are fed,
one family thankful and sharing the bread.
4. Great God of all time, our land and our Church,
your Presence our life, your vision our search:
by new generations your love be enjoyed,
a love that’s forever, and never destroyed!
WELCOME
E te whānau a te Karaiti
ngā mihi aroha ki a tātou katoa.
Kia ora tātou.
Talofa lava
Talofa
GATHERING
Each of us arrives from all the ordinariness of living,
We come to centre ourselves once more.
To touch again that place inside that opens us to new possibilities
and to choose again our better selves. (MYoung alt.)
The blessing of God
The shalom of God
The light of God
be among us and between us, now and always.
PRAYER
We come to be opened by visions that can enlist us
in larger causes and more caring actions.
We come to hear stories that might take us
into a deeper kind of integrity, and reconnect us
with our better selves.
So may the warmer fullness that we seek
fill our hearts, our minds and our souls.
May it be so.
JESUS’ PRAYER Jim Cotter paraphrase
Eternal Spirit
Life-Giver, Pain-Bearer, Love-Maker,
source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
loving God, in whom is heaven:
the hallowing of your name
echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed
by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done
by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory
of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.
LIGHTING THE RAINBOW CANDLE
TIME WITH CHILDREN Graham Howell
BLESSING THE CHILDREN (All stand)
We send you to the Rainbow Room to hear stories, ask questions
and have fun together.
We bless you. Amen.
PASSING THE PEACE
Traditionally we shake hands to pass the peace and say “peace be with you.” Now that COVID-19 is here we ask that you pass the peace without shaking hands.
THE WORD IN TEXTS Jenn Keenan
Gospel Luke 24: 44-53
New Testament Acts 1: 6-11
Contemporary reading from: “The Song of Jesus”
by Ron O’Grady
They speak of him in tired tomes,
imprisoning him
in their wordy theologies,
giving him shape without substance
in plaster statues,
holding him prisoner
in ancient history.
But he will escape.
Oh, yes, he will escape.
No religious straight-jacket
can contain him forever.
Then it will be our helplessness
and our grace
to see him loosed in the world,
changing,
subverting,
liberating,
weeping,
laughing...........
resurrected.
RESPONSE
For the Word in scripture,
for the Word among us,
for the Word within us,
we give thanks.
HYMN ‘Welcome doubt’
Words: © 2011 David Stevenson
Music: WOV 165 (ii) Blaenwern
1. Welcome doubt! Refine our thinking,
urge us further into light;
lead us to a greater dawning
from the shadows of our night.
Welcome knowledge! Food for wisdom,
leaving prejudice behind;
pledge of science, fruit of reason,
seeking love with all our mind.
2. Welcome truth! But little caring
whence it come, cost what it will;
though it challenge deep conviction,
truth shall be our focus still.
Welcome faith! Our thought transcending,
touching mystery divine;
joy of trusting, source of action,
fervent hope’s courageous sign.
REFLECTION Earthed! Rev. Dr Jim Cunningham
HYMN FFS 63 ‘These Hills’
Words and music by Colin Gibson
Words and music © 1998 Hope Publishing Company
1. These hills where the hawk flies lonely,
beaches where the long surf rolls,
mountains where the snows meet heaven,
these are our care.
Pastures where the sheep graze calmly,
orchards where the apples grow,
gardens where the roses cluster,
these are our prayer.
2. Forests where the tree ferns tower,
rivers running strong and clear,
oceans where the great whales wander,
these are our care.
Race meeting race as equals,
justice for age-old wrong,
worth for every man and woman,
these are our prayer.
3. Cities where the young roam restless,
lives brought to deep despair,
homeless and powerless people,
these are our care.
Places where the Word is spoken,
hands held in serving love,
faiths of our many cultures,
these are our prayer.
4. All that the old world gave us,
all that the new world brings,
language, ideas, customs,
these are our care.
Life finding joy and value,
faith seeking truth and light,
God heard and seen in all things,
this be our prayer.
OFFERTORY MUSIC
OFFERING HYMN Tune: Duke Street WOV 24
Willing hands, to lead the blind,
heal the wounded, feed the poor.
Love embracing all our kind,
charity with liberal store.
PRAYER (together)
God, by our smallest actions, we become part of a bigger world.
The smallest giving can be an expression of
the good spirit of generosity and caring.
Help us to carry through the doorway of each new day
this spirit spirit of generosity and caring. Amen
We recognise and bless the gifts brought to the table, and those which wing their way electronically from our banks to the church’s account.
LIFE IN THE COMMUNITY OF ST ANDREW’S
People share notices and visitors are welcomed. If you have a notice, please move to the front row, ready to speak briefly from the lectern.
For the benefit of newcomers, please introduce yourself before you begin.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Ken Irwin
CIRCLE OF PRAYER
We think today of the people of Portugal and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal. We hold all refugees in our hearts. We pray in particular for those detained for many years in Papua New Guinea & Nauru. We give thanks for progress that has been made and pray that their calls for justice might yet find a compassionate response. In New Zealand, we remember those in Parliament, and today we name Hon Julie Anne Genter and Golriz Ghahraman list MPs. Here in the Central Presbytery, we pray for the leaders and people of Knox Presbyterian Church, Lower Hutt.
PRAYER FOR ST ANDREW’S
Renew your people, God,
and renew our life in this place.
Give us a new spirit of unity
with all who follow the Way of Jesus
and new bonds of love
with people of other faiths.
Bless the city in which we live
that it may be a place
where honest dealing,
good government,
the desire for beauty,
and the care for others flourish.
Bless this church
that what we know of your will
may become what we do,
and what we believe
the strong impulse
of our worship and work.
Amen
HYMN ‘We shall go out with hope’
Words by June Boyce-Tillman © 1993 Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Music: CH4 729 Londonderry Air
1. ‘We shall go out with hope of resurrection
we shall go out, from strength to strength go on;
we shall go out and tell our stories boldly,
tales of a love that will not let us go.
We’ll sing our songs of wrongs that can be righted,
we’ll dream our dreams of hurts that can be healed;
we’ll weave a cloth of all the world united
within the vision of a new life in Christ.
2. We’ll give a voice to those who have not spoken;
we’ll find the words for those whose lips are sealed,
we’ll make the tunes for those who sing no longer,
expressing love alive in every heart.
We’ll share our joy with those who still are weeping,
raise hymns of strength for hearts that break in grief,
we’ll leap and dance Christ’s resurrection story,
including all within the circles of our love.
CALL TO SERVICE
Go into the world: dance, laugh, sing and create.
We go with the creativity of God.
Go into the world: risk, explore, discover and love.
We go with the encouragement of God.
Go into the world: believe, hope, struggle and remember.
We go with the assurance of God’s love.
BLESSING (sung) Words: Shirley Erena Murray;
Music: Shona Murray FFS 29
God speed us on our way, safe keep us every day,
give us wing, cause to sing, all this we wish and pray.
God give us space to thrive, all senses kept alive,
health and hope, means to cope, joyfully to arrive.
God lead us to the new, places and points of view,
roads to take, friends to make, more life to travel through.
SUNG AMEN
POSTLUDE
THANK YOU
THANK YOU Bruce Corkill our musician today