Home Worship Guide

May 9, 2021

Welcome

Thank you so much for joining us! The following page will take you through the order of worship for this Sunday.

If you are new, welcome! We also want to invite you to learn more about us. You can do so by selecting the button below.
A few tips for parents:
  • Plan for your time – read through the guide and prepare the room where you are gathering
  • Make your time joyful – have fun!!!
  • Remember, it’s primarily about a relationship, not a task to scratch off
  • Have your kids participate in age and maturity appropriate ways – reading, singing, etc.
  • You are welcome to print out this week's Children's Bulletin here.

Time of Reflection

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?

“This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him… though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.”
~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), in his Pensées

“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”
~St. Augustine (354-430), North African bishop and theologian

“It is significant that God does not present us with salvation in the form of an abstract truth, or a precise definition or a catchy slogan, but as story… Story is an invitation to participate, first through our imagination and then, if we will, by faith, with our total lives in response to God.”
~Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), pastor, scholar and author

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
~Simone Weil (1909-1943), French philosopher and activist

“Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what God or the Word of God is.”
~John Bunyan (1628-1688), English writer and preacher, who spent 12 years in prison for preaching the gospel

“Who gave mercy my address? Or told it how to get to my room? Didn’t it know a sinner lived in it? On the way down the hall, shouldn’t the smell of idols kept its feet from moving any closer. Then I remembered the one verse of the Bible that I knew by heart. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’”
~Jackie Hill-Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

Opening Prayer

(select someone from your group to open your service in prayer)

Call to Worship

Psalm 145:1-7 (ESV)

LEADER: I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.

PEOPLE: Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.

LEADER: Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.

PEOPLE: One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.

LEADER: On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

PEOPLE: They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
 
ALL: They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

Songs & Liturgy

(sing as a group and/or sing along to recorded versions)
O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING
(Charles Wesley, 1739)
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of His grace!

My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
the honors of Thy name.

Jesus! The name that charms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease,
‘Tis music in the sinners ears,
‘tis life and health and peace.

He breaks the pow’r of canceled sin,
He sets the pris’ner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean
His blood availed for me.

Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,
your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind behold your Savior come;
and leap ye lame for joy.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
PSALM MEDITATION Psalm 145:8-21 (ESV)

LEADER: The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

PEOPLE: The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.

LEADER: All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
and all your saints shall bless you!

PEOPLE: They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
and tell of your power,

LEADER: To make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

PEOPLE: Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

LEADER: The Lord is faithful in all his words
and kind in all his works.

PEOPLE: The Lord upholds all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.

LEADER: The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.

PEOPLE: You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

LEADER: The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.

PEOPLE: The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

LEADER: He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.

PEOPLE: The Lord preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
 
ALL: My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

FAIREST LORD JESUS
(17th Century German hymn)
Fairest Lord Jesus! Ruler of all nature!
O Thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown!

Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing!

Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer,
Than all the angels heaven can boast!

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forevermore be Thine!
PUBLIC DOMAIN

Sharing

(as a lead into the Prayer Time, as a group share how you are feeling and what you are learning)

Prayer Time

(You may have an open time of prayer or select someone to pray)

  • Pray for our church’s short and long-term meeting place needs, that God would give us favor in the eyes of those in authority and that He would give us provision that would go far beyond all that we could ask or imagine.
  • Pray for our world – that the good news of Jesus Christ would flourish and that many would come to know God genuinely and personally.
  • Pray for those experiencing injustices; specifically, that God would bring hope, reconciliation, and restoration through the good news of His Son, and that we would be agents of this reconciliation.
  • Pray for those in authority at every level in our country, that they would govern wisely and justly.

Listen to Sermon

“Jesus, a Woman, and a ‘Chance’ Encounter at a Well”
John 4:1-30
preached by Pastor Don Willeman
Unfortunately, the video recording of the sermon did not work this week. You can access an audio recording below. We apologize for any inconvenience. We hope to have a recording of the sermon available by 11:30 am.
Scripture Passage: John 4:1-30 (ESV)

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Confession of Faith

Adapted from John 1:1-5, 14, 18

LEADER: Christian, what do you believe?

PEOPLE: In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God. 
      
He was in the beginning with God. 
All things came into being through him.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 
The light shines in the darkness, 
and the darkness has not overcome it.
 
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, 
and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, 
full of grace and truth.
 
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, 
he has made him known.

Song of Response

(sing as a group and/or sing along to recorded versions) 
BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD ABOVE
(Charitie Bancroft, 1841, Vikki Cook)
Before the throne of God above,
I have a strong and perfect plea,
A great High Priest whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heav’n he stands,
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see him there,
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God the Just is satisfied,
To look on him and pardon me,
To look on him and pardon me.

Behold him there! The risen Lamb,
My perfect, spotless righteousness;
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace!
One with himself I cannot die,
My soul is purchased by his blood;
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God,
With Christ my Savior and my God.
©1997 PDI Worship CCLI #1791178

Benediction

(The leader or individual should read this aloud relishing in the confident assertion that Christ has conquered.)

Luke 12:29-32

LEADER: Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

PEOPLE: Amen!

Worshipping God through Giving

God has called us to be generous. He has entrusted this earth and all that is in it to us, but it is, ultimately, His! The Father gave what was most precious to Him, His own Son, in order to die for our sins. He has given to us abundantly beyond all that we could possibly ask or imagine! He is a benevolent and generous Giver! So, we give.

First, we want to remind you to continue your regular giving to CRC. This supports the ongoing work and ministry here in the Upper Valley and around the world through our missions support. Second, please consider giving to our Benevolence Fund, which supports local community care, both inside and outside the church. This is vitally important right now! As we see needs sprouting up around the community, we want to be positioned to extend a loving hand of support to those in need.

Giving Numbers
Budgeted Giving: $242,280
Actual Giving to Date: $224,668
Difference: (-$17,612)
Missions Giving YTD: $42,140
updated as of 4/30/21