Sunday 14th May
Easter 6 – Advocate
8am
Led by Gavin
Acts 17.22–31
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
Psalm 66.7–18
Bless our God, O you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard,
Who holds our souls in life
and suffers not our feet to slip.
For you, O God, have proved us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the snare;
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water;
but you brought us out into a place of liberty.
I will come into your house with burnt offerings
and will pay you my vows,
which my lips uttered
and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
I will offer you fat burnt sacrifices
with the smoke of rams;
I will sacrifice oxen and goats.
Come and listen, all you who fear God,
and I will tell you what he has done for my soul.
I called out to him with my mouth
and his praise was on my tongue.
If I had nursed evil in my heart,
the Lord would not have heard me,
But in truth God has heard me;
he has heeded the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer,
nor withheld his loving mercy from me.
John 14.15–21
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’
9.30am
Welcomers – Lisa-Dawn
Welcome and Preparation
Song 1 – The Power of Your Love
Confession and Absolution
Song 2 – My Jesus, My Saviour
John 14.15–21 read by Leta
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’
Talk – Gavin + invite the Spirit
Song 3 – Spirit of the Living God
Prayers – Lisa-Dawn
Peace and Communion (with Remember Me)
Hymn 4 During Communion – Breathe on me Breath of God (Organ #6)
Saying Thank you
Song 5 – The Blessing
Notices, Dismissal Prayer, and Blessing
Hymn 6 – Let Peace Begin with Me
Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord
9am (COE)
Leader: John and Jenny
Preacher: John
10.30am (HTC)
Leader: Terry
Preacher: Anne
11am (SPC)
Leader: John
Preacher: John