Ardoch and Blackford Parish Churches
Sunday 6th September 2020
Download a pdf copy of the Order of service:
6th September Order of Service
Welcome to our Service of Worship and First Hymn
Hymn: Beautiful Saviour (all my days)
Stuart Townend
Mairi leads us in prayer
Let us pray
Almighty and all loving God
We would bring you our praise
We would offer you our worship
We would open our hearts
We would tell of all you mean to us
We would proclaim your greatness
Eternal and all powerful God
We hunger to meet with you
To hear your voice
To know your will
To learn more of you
And to offer you a commitment
That does justice to your love
Gracious and all forgiving God
Help us then to acknowledge our faults
To confess our sins
To recognise our many weaknesses
To see all that is wrong in our lives
And to be a people who do justice to your mercy
Great and all transforming God
Enable us to serve you more faithfully
Love you more deeply
Know you more fully
Obey you more completely
And live in a way
That does justice to your renewing power
Everlasting God
You know what we are
And you know what we want to be
Lord hear our prayers
Receive our worship
And so help us become the people you would want us to be
To the glory of your name
AMEN
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Our reader this morning is Eleanor Thomas from Ardoch Church. She is reading from Psalm 149 v1 and Psalm 150
Hymn: Free, Amen recorded by We the Kingdom
Over the last few weeks there has been much talk about re opening. As the world gradually unfolds and re opens, society begins to look very different, society and its people have changed. Many things will never go back to how they were before March 2020.
But what of our Church, how do we re open ….. when we never actually closed. The doors may have been secured to the element yes but our church grew in many different ways.
My concern is that if we don’t reopen our relationship with Christ to its greatest potential we will find ourselves more closed off and locked down than ever. So when I talk about reopening I’m talking about reopening as an Easter people.
I’m talking about reopening our eyes
I’m talking about reopening our hearts
I’m talking about reopening our lives.
I’m talking about reopening ourselves to something new,
Something different,
Something unexpected.
Something exciting
I’m talking about reopening to life, and life abundant, not just for ourselves but for everyone
I’m talking about singing a new song to the Lord
I’m talking about praising the Lord in new ways
I’m talking about praying like we have never prayed before
I’m talking about studying and using our bibles
I’m talking about taking our faith to the next level and out into our communities and really making a difference
We need to sing a new song to the Lord
If we turn to our bibles we can see that three Psalms start with precisely these words — Psalms 96, 98, and 149 — “sing to the Lord a new song.” As does Isaiah 42:10 (“sing to the Lord a new song”) and Psalm 33:3 (“sing to him a new song”). And Psalm 144:9 adds its voice to the chorus, “I will sing a new song to you, O God.”
Are you ready to sing a new song to the Lord
I know that my heart is ready to sing a new song to the Lord , I may not have all the words or quite the right tune yet but that does not matter because I Know I have the spirit leading me .
So I simply invite you to join me on this amazing life changing adventure because “in the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom”
Amen