Lighting the Christ Candle

The light of Christ has come among us!

Entry of the Bible

Welcome and AnnouncementsRegret

• Welcome to worship at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Salmon Arm.  We are delighted that you have joined us online.    Today we are celebrating the Lord’s Supper and we do invite you to participate.  What you need is some bread or a cracker and some juice or wine.
• Octobers Loonie Offering will be going to St. Andrew's Hall a part of the Vancouver School of Thelogy on the campus of UBC. This offering has traditionally gone to help fund the lunch program but because of the Covid 19 pandemic that may change; I am sure that St Andrew's Hall will find a worthy use for the funds and appreciate your gifts greatly. You may send your donations to; St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, 1981 9th Ave. NE, Salmon Arm BC, V1E 2L2 or e-transfer to standrews1981@outlook.com Please label you gift "October Loonie offering" or click here to get info on how to give directly 
• Board of Managers meet Monday October 4th at 11am
• Session meet Wednesday October 7th at 10 am
• If you are visiting us online and wish to speak to someone about concerns or prayer requests you may have; please visit our Contact info page or click here. We would be happy to speak with you, God bless.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Risen, living Christ,

we embrace your gift of resurrection power.

Risen calling Christ,
We open our whole being to your invitation to

join you in moving from deadness into fullness of life.

Jesus, spirit, companion, friend,

You ask each of us to show our love for you

by tending and feeding your world and its people.

Jesus, spirit, companion, friend
Empower us to offer love in every way; just as you offered love, in life, in death and in resurrection.

Jesus, spirit, companion, friend

We respond, "Yes!" to your call to live in you.

 

HYMN  worship the Lord

Online:  come now is the time to worship

PRAYER OF INVOCATION

Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth, we gather together in Your name.  We come as living sacrifices, to offer You our worship and thanksgiving, our praise and our prayers.  Come among us, living Lord.

Through the power of Your Holy Spirit, transform our hearts and minds so that we may recognize Your presence, hear Your voice, know Your will, and walk in Your way.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, in whom we live and move, and have our being, and with whom we share death for the forgiveness of sins.  Thus we are bold to pray

Amen.

 

UNISON PRAYER OF CONFESSION

When we hold out our hands to be cuffed by loneliness,
you clasp our wrists to pull us into your heart.
When our lives are shattered by the injustices done to those
passed over by the world, your love puts us back together,
so we can serve them with your hope.
Emancipating God, you have called us to live in you.  May we hear that call.

When we would build walls between us and our neighbors,
you come to be the welcoming gate.  When we would curse someone
who has hurt us in our souls, you sing us songs of blessing.
When we would focus only on our needs and our desires,
you hand us the dinnerware and ask us to set the Table.
Ever-near Salvation,  you have called us into your resurrection
May we hear that call!

When we would feed on our bitter brokenness, you would offer us
the Bread of reconciliation.  When we would grasp the Cup of peace,
and drink it to the last drop, you whisper, 'offer some
to those you don't like.'  Liberating Spirit, you have called us into your mission.  May we be filled with you!

 

Assurance of Pardon

The word God brings to us is clear.  We are baptised into a death like Christ’s, so that we may live in a resurrection like Christ’s.  In Jesus Christ we have true forgiveness and a true calling to be Christ in the world.  Let us embrace the gifts God has given us.

 

PASSING THE PEACE

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

HYMN  Spirit Song

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Romans 6: 3-11
Romans 12: 1-2, 9-13
Galatians 2: 19-21

 

SERMON:  Baptized into Mission

It was a cold, rainy and blustery day.  The wind, working it’s way through a person with a chilling blast.  The guest minister walked into the church, noting immediately that it was nice and toasty.

Walking through to the kitchen she found the minister filling the water for the font.  “The water heater isn’t working,” he said, “I hope the water warms up before the baptism.”

I have always wondered why neither of us considered heating the water in the kettle, after all the electricity was working.

The family with the baby arrived.  Because it was a cold day, she was all bundled up with a thick sweater and bonnet set, and snuggled into a warm blanket.

Through the service she slept peacefully.

The guest minister and the parents met at the font.   There were prayers, and the baby was handed over, still swaddled and cocooned against the cold.  The minister took the bonnet off and noted the flushed red cheeks, the damp sweaty hair and the warm skin of an overheated baby.

*She took the first handful of that ice cold water, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father…..

Loud screeching ensued….

And the son…

The screeching grew louder….

And the Holy Spirit….

And the baby howled her displeasure like only a van Zoeren baby can.

It may be a funny story in our family, but there is something in the reaction to the baptism that bears considering.   The baby (Katie) was startled from her previous condition –a toasty warm sleep—into another state of being.

That state of being wasn’t exactly welcome.  It shocked her out of complacency and comfort and into a disquieting awareness that things had changed.

For all of us who have been baptized, that disquieting awareness intrudes into our lives.

As we continue to explore our calling to mission, we are also considering the reality that for us being in Christ, means that things have changed.  The hymn Spirit of Gentleness points that out in the first verse:

Spirit, spirit of Gentleness, blow through the wilderness
calling and free, spirit, spirit of restlessness stir me from placidness, wind, wind on the sea.
You moved on the waters, you called to the deep
Then you coaxed up the mountains from the valleys of sleep
and over the aeons you called to each thing
arise from your slumbers and rise on your wings.

In our pre-baptized state, we are asleep, unaware, even oblivious to the presence and calling of God in our lives.  In our post-baptized state, we find ourselves shocked into this new life, where the Holy Spirit guides and directs us into the work that God is calling forth from us.

The truth is:  We are baptized into mission.

Today we consider the truth that our baptism is our calling to participate in mission.  In our baptism we are called into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

When we are baptized we are called into the story of Jesus, and to make it our story as we live out his existential reality into the world.

Into is the pivotal word as we consider what our baptism means.

Into means:   expressing movement or action with the result that someone or something becomes enclosed or surrounded by something else.

When we are baptized into Christ, then we are enclosed in Christ, completely surrounded by him.

The significance of that is seen the prayer, St. Patrick’s breastplate, which declares our interconnectedness with Jesus and his calling.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

When we are baptized; we are baptized into the life of Jesus, where we live as Jesus lived, walking in God’s will and serving all those whom God brings into our realm.

When we are baptized; we are baptized into his death, where he died for our sins.  In that dying with Christ we bear the punishment for our sins.

When we are baptized; we are buried with him into death, we pay the penalty for sin, and suffer as he suffered, and our sins are expunged.

When we are baptized; we walk with Jesus in newness of life, and having been forgiven and we are set free to live in complete righteousness before God.

When we are baptized; we are brought into a resurrection like his, where we live in the eternal presence of our God.

And more than that, all of that belongs to us, even as we walk on this earth.   And because we are baptized into Christ, it is like we have clothed ourselves in Christ.  He is in front of us, beside us, behind us, around us and within us.  We are within his protection, his peace and his joy.

All of this is at the very core of our believing, as we walk in participation with Jesus in the mission of God.  We are embraced, enfolded and even enveloped in Christ as he fills our hearts, our wills and our very being.

It is like a warm, eternal hug.

Do you remember hugs?  Not just the hugs we share as a part of polite greeting, but real hugs, hugs that reach down into our core….

Especially those hugs from the people who know you best, and who walk with you in your deepest pain and greatest joy.  Hugs that comfort and heal.  Hugs that celebrate and strengthen.  Hugs that speak of the deep love you share.

Baptism is like that hug.  Where God reaches deep within us and gives us his peace, comfort, strength, joy and purpose.  In baptism we are hugged into Christ where we wear him, inside and out for eternity.

These truths are so hard to explain in just words.  That is why so much of Biblical language is metaphorical.

We wear the clothes of righteousness.
We wear the breastplate of faith.
We are transferred into Christ.
We are anointed with the oil of God’s calling
We are filled with Christ, until he overflows in us and over us.

That is why we believe that to be in Christ is to be in mission.  Mission was the reason Jesus came to earth, and Mission is purpose of our living as well.  The joyous burden of that truth is that, to be in Christ is a full commitment, not a temporary state of being.

Therefore we live the gospel INTO the world in a deliberately and publicly visible way, as we take upon ourselves the mantle of  servant.

More than that our baptism includes the baptism of the Holy Spirit in whose power the church looks again and again for new ways to live into the world.  To be missional requires great imagination.  That imagination is fueled by metaphors.

Paul tells us that the Word (meaning the written word of God and Jesus who is the word of God) is on your lips and in your hearts.  He writes:  The word is near you, on your lips and in your hearts.

This is bigger than we can understand.  It is not just the words of Scripture that we share in worship, or over lunch at work, or as we speak with one another.  This word is seen in how we live, in the depth of our love, in the unquestioning compassion we extend to one another.

And we know, don’t we, because of the times we have failed in this mission, that it is something that is bigger than us.  It is about our willingness to let God direct our footsteps.  It is about hearing Jesus speak through us, and seeing the love of Jesus flowing from within us.

It has nothing to do with our power or goodness.  The commentators in the Spiritual formation Bible write  that when we embrace the metaphor, we must imagine and enter into believing, obeying and participating.

Paul writes this to us not to define and limit our response to God, but rather to evoke us into embracing all that God brings to us in Christ.  He evokes the great energy of Jesus into our reality and he reminds us that we are:

In Jesus
in the death of Jesus
in the resurrection of Jesus
in the purpose of Jesus.

That is why our faith is more than the words we speak.

We can’t just say peace be with you; we must be the peace that is with others.  And similarly the love, joy, hope, ….

When we are baptized, we are called to be Christ in the world and to be Christ for others.

Paul is clear about that in letter after letter, as he repeats that message found in Romans 6 saying that baptism defines the Christian life and marks our participation in a dramatic and decisive death to a sin dominated existence into the radical new identity that marks our new life.

We are called to consider on a scale of 1 -10 how difficult it is to give everything we think, say and do to God.  And then, to give it anyway.

When we look at our baptism is it means looking at a stunning picture of ourselves in unity with Jesus, and of seeing ourselves THRUST INTO a full and immediate participation, over and over again into this new Christian life.

Again, we hear the calling of the Spirit…

You call from tomorrow, you break ancient schemes
from the bondage of sorrow, the captives dream dreams
Our women see visions, our men clear their eyes
with bold new decisions your people arise.

Spirit, spirit of Gentleness, blow through the wilderness
calling and free, spirit, spirit of restlessness stir me from placidness, wind, wind on the sea.

Amen.

 

HYMN:  Take my life and let it be

OFFERING

Today we remember the gift of Jesus Christ given to us.
For ways in which to bring your offering into the storehouse check the front page of the website.  Thank you.

Let us now pray for the offering received 

OFFERTORY PRAYER

in deep gratitude for all that You have done for us,

we offer ourselves and our gifts to You—living sacrifices of worship and praise.  Transform our hearts and minds from the inside out;  show us what is good and pleasing in Your sight, so that we may be quick to recognize Your call, and quick to respond.  In the name of Jesus, our Messiah and Lord, Amen.

 

 

GATHERING PRAYER REQUESTS
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

God our Father, Creator of all,

in these few moments of worship,

we come to you with the words and works,

the desires, and hopes, and fears,

that dominate our everyday lives.

 

We come to give thanks in all things;

to seek new perspective, to find new strength.

JOYS

Successful surgery for Trish, and believing for a complete recovery

 

 

Jesus Christ, Son of God,

help us today to find our hearts burning –

with a fiery love and devotion to you,

so that, kneeling at your feet,

we hear the tender whisper of your call

As we hear that whisper, we respond with our intercessions for your world and your people.

California, wildfires
EMS
The people of the USA in these chaotic times.  Leaders.  Peace.  Calm.
Irene
Kathy as she has more tests.  Clay supporting her
teachers/children/school

 

 

Holy Spirit, Wind of God,

open our minds to learn from Christ,

that in listening we might hear,

that in hearing, we might pray

and that in praying, we might respond,

putting our our labour into the things we ask for,

and now, as Jesus invites us into the world, to die, and live for him.

This we ask  in faith, praying as Jesus has taught us, saying:

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,
and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.

 

 

 

INVITATION TO THE TABLE (Click the blue text to view the Communion Service without the hymns)

Invitation:

This is the table, not of the Church but of the Lord, it is to be made ready for those who love him and who want to love him more.

So come, you who have much faith, and you who have little, you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time, you who have followed and you who have failed.

Come not because it is I who invite you, it is our Lord, .  It is his will that those who want him should meet him here.

 

HYMN Let us talents and tongues employ

 

The Apostle’s Creed

539:  The Apostle’s Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty
creator of heaven and earth

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried: he descended to the dead
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting.  Amen

 

THE GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

564 The Great Prayer of thanksgiving

The Lord be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give God thanks and praise

… Eternal God, conceiver and shaper, ruler and saviour of the world, we bless you that, awake and aware, we are free to praise you,.  Bound in Christ to worshippers in every land, we worship you in the language of our land, as do others in the languages of their homeland.  With all others, around the world, we are grateful to be a part of your pattern and purpose, baptised into the death and resurrection of Jesus whom we celebrate at this table.  Therefore:  We join with the whole creation to lift our hearts in joyful praise

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
heaven and earth are full of your glory,
Hosanna in the highest

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
Hosanna in the highest

For us he was born, for us he brought healing, for us he was crucified, and for us after death, he rose again.  Therefore in unity with the church on earth and in heaven we do proclaim the mystery of our faith:

Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.

Lord Jesus Christ, present with us now, for all that you have done, and all that you have promised, what have we to offer?  OUr hands are empty, our hearts are sometimes full of the wrong things.  We are not fit to gather up the crumbs from under your table.  But with you is mercy, and the power to change us.

Trusting in that mercy we proclaim that we cannot take bread and forget those who are hungry.  Your world is one world and we ask you to put us at the service of the poor.

Trusting in your mercy we cannot take wine and forget those who are thirsty.  The earth and all its weary people cry out for justice.  We ask you to put us at the service of the empty.

We cannot hear your words of peace and forget the world at war.  Show us how to turn weapons into welcome signs and put us at the service of those who desire peace.

We cannot celebrate this feast of your family and forget our divisions.  Lord heal your church in every brokenness, and put us at the service of those who are broken by the words and actions of others.

In all that we do let us remember that in you is mercy and the power to change us.

So as we do in this place what you did in an upstairs room, we ask you to send down your Holy Spirit on us, on these gifts of bread and wine that they may become for us your body, healing, forgiven and making us whole.

And that we may become for you, your body loving and caring in the world until your kingdom comes.  Amen.

 

INSTITUTION OF THE HOLY SUPPER

Hear the words of the Institution of the Holy Supper

On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus sat among friends gathered round a table.  There Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and said:  this is my body broken for you.

And later he took the cup and giving thanks he said:  this cup is the new relationship with God, given for you in the cross.

let us together proclaim our eschatalogical hope:

For as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we do proclaim the Lord's death until he returns.

 

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTS

I Invite you now to open your packages of bread and juice

As you unwrap your communion bread and wine, remember that this is the Lord coming to you, for you, and to be with you for all of time.  These are the gifts of God for the people of God.

 

SHARING THE MEAL

These are the gifts of God for the people of God

Take bread:   This is my body broken for you.  Eat, rejoice, and be strengthened.  Do this in remembrance of me

 

Take wine:  This is my blood shed for the forgiveness of sins.  Drink from it all of you.  Do this in remembrance of me.

 

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

 Let us join together in prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, you have put your life into our hands; now we put our lives into yours.

Take us, renew us and remake us.  What we have been is past; and what we shall be through you still awaits us.

Lead us on.  Take us with you.  Amen.

HYMN Now let us from this table rise

BLESSING AND BENEDICTION

Benediction Song 

Online: Tell me the stories of Jesus

Benediction Song  Who’s going to tell the story

Who’s going to tell the story, you and I
Tell of the Lord’s great glory, you and I
Who’s gong to let the whole world know
Help his disciples grow and mulitiply?
You and I!