Download July 31, 2016 - Round Hill Community Church

Round Hill
Community Church
ORDER OF SERVICE
July 31, 2016
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
PRELUDE
Pastorale
Andante
Sammaratini
Schroeder
WORDS OF WELCOME
INTROIT
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader:
We have gathered here this morning to worship God.
All:
We have come seeking comfort, inspiration, community and
insight.
Leader:
We have come to open ourselves to the power of God’s presence
in our midst.
All:
We have come to offer up the seasons and the turnings in our
lives, and to ask God’s guidance in our learning and in our
growing.
*HYMN No. 6
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
*The congregation is invited to stand
*OPENING PRAYER
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from you no secrets are hid:
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy Name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
*THE 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 trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.
*GLORIA PATRI
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
SUMMER HYMN SING
Children may now leave for Church School.
ANTHEM
SCRIPTURE LESSON
The Call
Vaughn Williams
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-19; 7:8-11
1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
1:12 I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem,
1:13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done
under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings
to be busy with.
1:14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and
a chasing after wind.
2:18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must
leave it to those who come after me
2:19 --and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be
master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also
is vanity.
7:8 better is the end of a thing than its beginning; the patient in spirit are better
than the proud in spirit.
7:9 Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.
7:10 Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
7:11 Wisdom is as good as an inheritance and advantage to those who see the
sun.
SERMON
Strangers in a Strange Land: The Voice of Ecclesiastes
The Rev. Dr. Ed Horstmann
OFFERING
Invitation
Anthem
Hallelujah Amen (Judas Maccabeus) G.F. Handel
*Doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him, all
creatures here below; praise him above, ye heavenly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
*Hymn
My Country ‘Tis of Thee (verse 4)
Our fathers’ God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing; long may our
land be bright with freedom’s holy light; protect us by
thy might, Great God, our King.
PASTORAL PRAYER
*HYMN No. 595
Be Thou My Vision
CHURCH PRAYER
Our Heavenly Father, shed forth thy blessed spirit upon all our
lives. Make each one of us an instrument in thy hands for good.
Purify our hearts, strengthen our minds and bodies, fill us with
Christian love. Let no pride, no self-conceit, no rivalry, no ill-will
ever spring up among us. Make us earnest and true, wise and
prudent, giving no just cause for offense and may thy holy peace
rest upon us this day and every day throughout the coming week,
sweetening our trials, cheering us in our work, and keeping us
faithful to the end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
BENEDICTION and CHORAL RESPONSE
POSTLUDE
Deck Thyself With Gladness
Walther
ROUND HILL COMMUNITY CHURCH CREED
I believe in God, the one universal Father of all mankind, revealed
supremely in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and present with us to guide,
comfort and inspire in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Kingdom of God;
and in the mission of the Christian Church to proclaim the Gospel to all
the world, exalting the worship of the Lord our God, and laboring for
the progress of knowledge, the promotion of righteousness, the reign of
peace, and the realization of human brotherhood. United in Christian
love, we pray and labor for the coming of the Kingdom, the triumph of
righteousness and the life everlasting. Amen.
ROUND HILL COMMUNITY CHURCH MISSON STATEMENT
We, the members of the Round Hill Community Church, a selfgoverning, non-denominational body, seek to foster a community of
faith where people of all ages and backgrounds pursue spiritual growth;
where God is worshipped in Word and praised in music; where friends
are made and hurts are healed. We seek to be a community where
individuals commit their time and resources to education, fellowship,
and to helping those in need among our Church family and in the
broader world. We are a church where faith, hope, justice and love are
valued, and above all, Jesus is Lord.
CHURCH NEWS
Thank you to Kathryn Payne and Alice Melly for ushering this morning.
Thank you to Anne and Peter Alexander for hosting coffee hour this week.
Please join them in the parlor following the service.
The flowers in the Sanctuary today were given by Ann Flinn in loving
memory of Michael deV. Flinn.
Please keep in mind that the office is now operating on Summer Hours and
will close at noon on Fridays through Labor Day.
Outreach
Summertime is a good time to peel back the layers….and clean out the closets!
Do you have gently used interview clothes -- shirts, pants, jackets, suits, or
shoes? Do your children or grandchildren have clothing they’ve outgrown,
but that’s still in decent condition? The Outreach Committee continues to
collect clothing for St. Ann’s in the South Bronx. Please bring clothing
(laundered and pressed) on hangers. If you have any questions please contact
Caroline
Lazzara
([email protected])
or
Alice
Fisher
([email protected]).
Our next Simply Smiles service trip will be coming up in February 2017
when we spend a week in Oaxaca, Mexico. We all have talents and gifts to
give in the service of God and in the service of others, and we encourage you
to consider volunteering, sponsoring a scholarship for a local student and/or
financially underwriting the cost of this trip for someone who may need the
additional resources. Contact the Rev. Dan Haugh 203-869-1091 or
[email protected].
Neighbor to Neighbor has identified a pressing need in their food pantry right
now for donations of packable lunch items, such as individual fruit cups, juice
pouches/boxes, non-perishable milk boxes, granola bars, etc. Please leave
donations in the food wagon located in the Narthex.
CHILDREN’S CORNER
I love cookies. I’m pretty sure most people love cookies. They’re just plain
delicious, right? I eat them as often as I can but sometimes, as an adult, I
know that cookies aren’t always the healthiest choice for me, so I pass. I make
that decision for myself – sometimes I tell myself “yes” and sometimes, “no.”
As a child, when you ask your mom if you can have a cookie, do you always
get the same answer? Probably not. Sometimes the answer may be, "yes" and
sometimes it may be "no." If you ask for a cookie and it is almost time to eat
dinner, the answer might be, "not right now, it would spoil your dinner." You
see, your mom wants what is best for you and when you ask for something,
"yes" might not always be the answer that is best for you.
Did you know that same thing is true when we pray to God? Sometimes
we ask God for something and He answers, "yes" right away. Other times he
may say, "no." There are also times when we ask God for something, and he
says, "not right now." The reason God doesn't always say, "yes" is that He
wants what is best for his children -- and what we are asking for may not be
what is best for us.
God is all-powerful and can give us whatever we want, whenever He
wants to, but by saying “no,” God teaches us that He is in charge. teaches us
to be humble and to put our trust in Him rather than in our own strength and
in what we think is best for us. When we trust only in our own strength, we
may not be able to do nearly as much as we might if only we put all of our
trust in God.
God wants us to pray. He wants us to ask him for everything that we
need, but we must remember that what we want may not always be what we
need. God loves us and wants what is best for us. That is why when we pray
and ask for something, the answer is sometimes "no."
A child’s prayer: Dear Father, I know that you love me and want what is best
for me. Help me to remember that when I ask for something and your answer
is "no." Amen.
REFLECTION
This “Preacher” does not claim to be a credentialed clery-person or prophet.
He’s something unpredictable – a lay philosopher, going his own way. But
he holds to a baseline of faith and ethics, underwritten by the Almighty. His
message might be boiled down this way:




Everything passes away.
God knows all, judges all.
Keep God’s commandments.
Enjoy the world.
Our times are not for the faint of heart. Nor is Ecclesiastes. He lodges
a protest against the religious and cultural establishment of his day. More than
two thousand years later, nothing has changed. He still goes against the
national grain. He’s not part of the national conversation, whatever the nation.
We might dismiss Ecclesiastes as a crank, except for one inconvenient
fact: somehow he has a book of his own in the Bible. His words come with
the aura of divine biblical authority. His words, not ours, are found in Holy
Scripture.
In the Bible, Ecclesiastes serves as a place of refuge for a particular moment
in the spiritual life – a time of trouble, dismay, and recovery, whether the
reader is a lone individual or a standing-room only congregation or a soulsearching nation. Ecclesiastes is the book for times when God does not
answer in the expected way. Ecclesiastes is like a rocky isle on the map of
Bible reading – a windswept place, hard to reach, yet nevertheless a place to
land and hear things said that no one else says in scripture or in modern
spiritual America.
Ray Waddle, Against the Grain: Unconventional
Wisdom from Ecclesiastes
Senior Pastor: The Rev. Dr. Edward G. Horstmann
Associate Pastor: The Rev. Dan Haugh
Minister Emeritus: The Rev. Dr. Ralph Ahlberg
Minister of Music: Christopher Kabala
Round Hill Community Church
395 Round Hill Road, Greenwich, CT 06831
203.869.1091
roundhillcommunitychurch.org