Prelude
Welcome
Call to Worship
Leader: Come, not as strangers hoping to be welcomed, but as children of God.
People: In Christ, we are part of God's family.
Leader: Come with your questions, your burdens, your joys, and your fears.
People: We do not have to prove that we deserve to be here.
Leader: For in Christ Jesus, we are all children of God through faith.
People: By God's grace, we belong.
Leader: Then let us worship the God who calls us children and welcomes us home.
People: Let us worship God together.
Opening Hymn
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling UMH 384
Unison Prayer
Gracious God, you have not called us strangers or outsiders, but your beloved children. Yet we confess how easily we forget who we are and how easily we question whether others belong beside us. Open our hearts today to the wideness of your grace. Tear down the walls we build between ourselves and others, and free us from the need to prove our worth. Help us receive again the good news that in Christ we are yours, and teach us to see one another as members of the same family. Make this church a place where your welcome is not merely spoken but lived, so that all may discover the home you have made for us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Passing of the Peace
First Reading:
Galatians 3:23–29, 4:4–7
Sermon:
You Belong by Pastor Kevin Rutledge
Hymn of Response
The Gift of Love UMH 408
Tithes and Offerings
Offertory Response
Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow UMH 95
Offertory Prayer
Generous God, everything we have comes first from you. Receive these gifts and use them to make your grace visible in our community and our world. May they help create places where strangers become neighbors, where those who have been pushed aside find welcome, and where every person can hear the good news that they are loved. And as we offer these gifts, offer us again to your work, that our lives might proclaim what our words profess: in Christ, there is room for all of us. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer and Lord's Prayer
Announcements
Closing Hymn
In Christ There Is No East or West UMH 548
Benediction
Said Each Week as A Communal Prayer:
Send to us all the people who feel unwanted and unloved in other places, and if they can't come to us, send us to them.
Postlude
Special Insert
A Blessing of Prayer Shawls
Pastor: Gracious God, you have made us for one another, and you call us to bear one another’s burdens, to share one another’s joys, and to surround one another with love.
Today we give thanks for these prayer shawls and for the people who have made them. We give thanks for skilled and generous hands, for hours quietly given, for stitches made with care, and for prayers offered along the way.
People: We give thanks for every gift of love and every prayer woven into these shawls.
Pastor: We do not yet know all the people who will receive them. We do not know their names, the burdens they may be carrying, the grief they may be facing, the healing they may be seeking, or the hope they may need.
But you know them, O God.
People: Before we know their names, you already know them and love them.
Pastor: And so we ask your blessing upon these shawls and upon all who will receive them.
May they bring warmth to those who are cold, comfort to those who grieve, peace to those who are anxious, strength to those who are weary, and hope to those who feel alone.
As each shawl is wrapped around someone, may that person know that they are also surrounded by the prayers of this community and held in the everlasting love of God.
People: May these shawls become signs of your grace, reminders that no one walks alone, and tangible expressions of the love of Christ.
Pastor: Bless those who have made them. Bless those who will carry and give them. Bless those who will receive them. And bless the ministry that connects us to neighbors we may know well and to strangers whose names we may never learn.
May every thread bear witness to your love, every shawl carry the prayers of your people, and every person who receives one feel themselves held in your grace.
In the name of Jesus Christ, who surrounds us with love and binds us together as one body.
People: Amen.