GATHERING TO PRAISE GOD Sunday, October 23, 202

Prelude

Praise Song

Welcome

The People Gather
L: Here is your invitation.
Step back from daily life:
from display screens and overload,
from earphones and isolation.
Reconnect to visions and dreams:
meadows and pastures, hills and valleys,
mountains and seas.
Reconnect to the bounty of God.
All: Be glad and rejoice in God.

Hymn

The People Pray
L: Men and women, old and young,
see God’s visions, dream God’s dreams.
Young and old, women and men,
feel the Spirit fall like rain.
People everywhere on earth,
join creation, shout for joy:
All: Praise is due you, O God,
for all that you do,
for all that you have done,
for all that you promise to do.

Special Music

Children’s Moment

The Word of God for the People of God

Scripture James 1:2-4, 12-15
My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. 3 After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing.
Those who stand firm during testing are blessed. They are tried and true. They will receive the life God has promised to those who love him as their reward.
13 No one who is tested should say, “God is tempting me!” This is because God is not tempted by any form of evil, nor does he tempt anyone. 14 Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are lured away and enticed by them. 15 Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when sin grows up, it gives birth to death.
Message Trials, Temptations and the Testing of our Faith

Music Beautiful Things

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

Postlude

Memory Verse
Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. For the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:2-3

What has helped you learn to trust God’s caring goodness, even when God doesn’t make trials work out the way you wish they would?

How can you trust God’s grace rather than your own wishes or feelings?

How have you learned to let God’s eternal principle of love, not your own feelings, define what’s good?