GATHERING TO PRAISE GOD Sunday, April 24 , 2022

Prelude

Praise Song

Welcome

The People Gather
L: Christ is risen!
P: The joy of Easter still sings in our hearts.
L: Breathe the breath of new life in your spirits!
P: We open our hearts to all the wondrous work God has for us to do.
L: Welcome to worship this glorious day!
P: Let our lives be testimony to God’s redeeming love! AMEN.

Hymn

The People Pray
Glory be to you God our father, our strength and our redeemer.
The vacant cross and the empty tomb proves your claim that the love which suffers is the love that saves. Fill us with joy and your Church with celebration that the world may know that your holy Son Jesus is not a dead hero we commemorate, but the Living Lord we worship, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit, be our praise forever. Amen.

Special Music

Children’s Moment

The People Confess Their Sin
Living Lord, we confess that you call us to follow, and yet we hesitate. Make us bold in our response to your invitation. Help us to identify in our lives all that should rightly die. Resurrect in our lives faith, hope and love as surely as you raised Jesus from the grave. Amen.

Words of Assurance
The risen and present Christ offers forgiveness and relationship to all who repent and follow. Rise up and follow.

The Word of God for the People of God

Scripture Matthew 9:9-13
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Message The Basics: Follow

Pastoral Prayer

The People Bring Their Gifts
There are baskets in the back or use your online app

The People Go into The World

Praise Song

Benediction

Organ Postlude