Worship Words for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

If you are looking for some words to use for worship, or some inspiration for your own, here are some you can use or adapt, thanks to members of our RevGals community and beyond. If you can please give credit in video descriptions or print versions, that would be great, though spoken verbal attribution is not necessary.

From Tara Ann Gourson

Lighting of the Christ Candle
The Light of Christ shines.
The Light of Christ embraces us.
The Light of Christ is our strength,
thanks be!

Call to Worship
Worship is a time for prayer,
a time for reassurance,
but also a time to learn.
As we gather, let us meditate together
on God’s Word for our lives.

Opening Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Your Word O God,
nourishes us, strengthens us,
gives us guidance for this life.
As we spend time together this day,
may we open our hearts to
hear you, in the hopes that we
may follow in the path you have
laid before us.
This we pray in the name of Christ,
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father. . .Amen.

Prayer of Confession
You call us, O God,
to follow in Christ’s Way,
but sometimes we are unsure of
where it is we are going.
We struggle to know what it is
you ask of us,
we feel as though the path is too hard.
And so we pray for your forgiveness and guidance.
Help as we seek to play our part
in creating your Kingdom here on earth.
Guide, us, love us, lead us we pray, Amen.

Words of Assurance
Your forgiveness is never-ending, O God. So let us receive this gift and open ourselves to the new life that has been given!
Thanks be to God!

From Kate Jones

Focus Jeremiah 31:31-34

Call to Worship:
God be with you!
And also with you!
Let us open our hearts to worship;
We gather to worship God.
Let us open our minds to newness;
We gather to worship God.
Let us open our lives to love;
We gather to worship God.
Let us join our hearts,
let us join our minds,
let us join our purpose together;
We gather to worship God!

Opening Prayer:
God of beginnings
and of endings
and of new beginnings,
Move in our worship today.
Break our hearts open
so that we can sense your love embracing us,
and so that your love can flow through us
and overflow to the world around us.
Write your love on our hearts
so that we can know that you are our God
and so that we can be your people.
We pray all of this in the name of Jesus,
your loving Word made flesh.
Amen.

Prayer of Awareness:
Holy, holy, holy God,
you are holy mystery,
and you are wholly love.
You are always calling us into relationship with you,
but sometimes we have turned away.
Forgive us for the times
when we have forgotten that you love us.
Forgive us for the times
when we have withheld love from others.
Forgive us for the times
when we haven’t trusted in your promises.
Forgive us for the times
when our hearts have stubbornly resisted
the transformation you offer.
Forgive us,
and change our hearts,
so that we can live the love that is you.
In Christ’s name, we pray.
Amen.

Words of Assurance
God hears our prayers,
and before the words have left our lips,
or the thoughts have left our hearts,
God has forgiven you.
God promises to write God’s promises on our hearts;
God promises to forgive our wrongdoing;
And God promises to forget the wrong we have done
and see is through a lens of love.
Thanks be to God!

Offertory Prayer:
God of Abundant Generosity,
you call us to be your people.
You spoke creation into being –
the stars and the trees and the atoms –
yet you choose to be in relationship with humans.
Accept the things that we offer –
our time,
our gifts and skills,
our money,
and our very selves –
and transform them
so that your love might be made known
in every corner of the world.
We pray in and through Christ Jesus,
who teaches and lives your love.
Amen.

From a few years ago when we did a series on Covenant and were creating the rainbow heart in the photo

Call to Worship – Catherine MacDonald and Richard Bott

Lent is a journey of deepening reflection and renewal,
an opportunity to make new commitments in faith.
We are people of the Covenant, people of promise.

Orange is the colour of warmth,
enthusiasm, creativity, encouragement, and determination.
It is also the colour of sunset, the turning of the day to night.

We are very near now to the time of letting go,
when the grain of wheat falls into the ground.

We fear the falling, the losing;
we don’t want to think about it.

And yet, in the soil, there is a mystery:
life lost and kept for eternity.
Come, let us worship!

Covenant – Tune – Amazing Grace – Catherine MacDonald
God’s covenant will never fail
A promise sure and true.
A message ancient and brand new.
God’s word will see us through.

Covenant Love – Tune – Deep In Our Hearts – Catherine MacDonald

Covenant love, you are the word that stirs us
Covenant love, you cast out all our fears.
Covenant love, you never will forsake us
Promise and purpose will blossom here. X2

Lighting the Christ Candle and Call to Worship – Christine Shulze
This is the covenant that I will make
I will put my law within them, and write it on their hearts.
No longer shall they teach one another,
For they shall all know me from the least to the greatest
(says the Lord)For I will forgive their iniquity,
And remember their sin no more
In Jesus’ Life, Teaching and Self-Offering,
God Empowers Us to Live in Love.

Opening Prayer – Christine Shulze
Faithful and loving God, we are aware of the courage and strength You offer. We are amazed how You call us to approach living with a true heart. You assure us of Your faithfulness and so we hold fast to our hope. You help us to consider how to encourage one another to love and good deeds and so we adore You this day and always. We are aware that Holy nature and Human nature can radically find each other when we gather to sing and share. We give to You the burdens that blur, the fear that blares, the lies that confuse. We give to you all that keeps us from fully receiving and giving Your love. (A time of silent prayer)
Assurance of Forgiveness – Christine Shulze
In truth nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, a difficulty lifted, a joy rebound, a lost coin found, a friend healed…Jesus who told stories of healing, of searching, of sinners found, of love reborn. Let us be aware that it is in our truth, in the reality of the now, that God’s love inspires. Know you are beloved wherever you are and be at peace.

Offertory Prayer – Christine Shulze
We bring our changes of viewpoint, our seeking of fair sharing, our time spent in nature, our very selves. May our monies and time make space in the day, that all may experience Your love in Christ. Amen.

Prayer of the People – Christine Shulze
We have begun to make the shift from darkness to light. As we rest in the evenings or wake in the mornings we in this part of the world are enjoying the longer daylight hours and the shift of looking forward to warm has begun. We are aware of the almost but not yet of living in this icy chilled day…this middle time of transition and so we give thanks for the day. You have called to us O God, shown us, made us aware and helped us to breath gentle sweet breaths. Thank-you. Thank-you for this new day, for the moments of working together that have led us this week. We are grateful for the moments we’ve had to witness nature, the awareness of wind and the way it has begun to make the snow disappear. We are grateful to our furry friends and our human friends that have shown us grace and love. You continue to light our paths with your faithfulness. We give thanks for all the moments of the past week where we have felt your goodness and grace Oh God.

As we listen to the news we are once again struck by how corruption can seep into politics, how places and people must be vigilant in the power plays and money hungry systems. We pray for Your world and Your people. We are saddened by all the suffering that is present. We lift-up to you all those who are victims of oppression, poverty, and inequality. We pray for migrants and internal conflict in Colombia, for those protesting in Myanmar, the continuing lockdowns that covid brings and those who are suffering.

We know that our collective voice is needed as we continue to encourage justice, kindness and humility. We pray for the neighbours who are in need. Those who are suffering in silence because of mental illness or invisible trauma. May we keep our eyes open to the difficulties in our own communities.
Finally we offer our own lives, the people we know who are in need and we name them now, thinking of your light towards their lives as we name the needs that are close to our hearts in this quiet time.
Give strength to all people that love and kindness may grow. Give power and patience to help all people connect with the beautiful yet fragile creation surrounding us all. May your light be seen through our lives O God. May your love be our song each and every day. No matter our circumstance. And so we pray as Jesus taught….

Commissioning and Benediction – Christine Shulze
Living aware of God’s love in our lives,
we become the peace we want to see in the world.
Working together to share the gift of God’s saving act,
we see God’s grace within and all around the living.
Now we are dead to Sin, now we are alive in Christ.

A prayer on the Anniversary of
Not Being Able to Worship God,
in-person… The Right Reverend Richard Bott – United Church of Canada

Holy One,
it’s been a year.

A year since the pandemic
hit this part of the world,
and we realized that –
for the safety of each other
and all of our neighbours –
we needed to be a congregation
that wouldn’t congregate.

Well, not in-person, at least.

We’ve found other ways
(name them here).
Old technologies like paper mail,
and telephone trees,
and new technologies like “zooming”,
and pastoral care by video,
we’ve found ways of being together,
with each other,
and with you.

It’s not the same –
and there are parts of it
that we’re missing –
(you’re invited to name them here) –

but…
we’ve found ways to
live the ministry you have given us,
to be Jesus’s disciples,
to share your love,
with each other and
with the whole world.

We remember those who have died from the virus.
We remember those who are ill.
We remember the healthcare workers, the researchers, the grocery clerks, the delivery drivers – all who must work for the care of the world in their own way.

We remember all those who are grieving.
All those who are afraid.
All those who wait.
And we pray.

So, on this anniversary, we ask
that you would help us to
recognize each other
and to know that, in all of this,
you have been, are,
and always will be
with every part of your creation.

Give us strength to keep on.
Give us grace in our frustrations.
Give us hope for tomorrow.
Give us life, and life abundant,
that we might be people
who live it in the world.

Physically distanced,
but socially together;
faces masked,
but hearts open;
hands washed,
but ready to get to the work you have for us –
we pray.

In Jesus’ name,
carried by the wings of the Holy Spirit
enmeshed in the Creator’s love,
we pray.
Amen.

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