Estes Park United Methodist Church
December 5, 2021
Second Sunday of Advent
Come Home This Christmas
Announcements
- The Advent theme this year is “Come Home this Christmas!”
- Today we will be honoring World AIDS Day and are accepting offerings which will be given to UM Global AIDS Fund or the Center for Health and Hope.
- Easy Hiking Group meeting today at 3, Tuesday, and Thursday.
- Book Study group will be meeting on Wednesday at 6PM.
Birthdays
Beverly Briggs 12/4
Dwight Stranberg 12/5
Sid Scott 12/6
Adina DeWitt 12/7
Ellen Flanigan 12/7
Carolyn Wills 12/8
Order of Worship
Prelude
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
Greeting/Welcome
Lighting of the Second Advent Candle Jan and Wendy Rigby
Call to Worship
Leader: O come, O come, Immanuel,
People: And be light for our darkness.
Leader: Be comfort in our grief, be a friend for our loneliness,
People: An oasis for our searching.
Leader: O come, O come, Immanuel,
People: Restore our joy, heal our wounds, and bring us peace.
Opening Prayer (Unison)
Loving God, be to us as a bulldozer of the spirit. Clear your road in us; clear a path through the detritus of possessions and obsessions. Thrust aside our divided aims and devious games. Topple the ramparts of pride and the doubts that deride. Make a highway on which Christ may come and take possession of the whole territory of our being. To the glory of your name, we pray. Amen!
Opening Hymn
People Look East #202
Affirmation of Faith
We are not alone, we live in God’s world. We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God. We are called to be the church: to celebrate God’s presence, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Offering
World AIDS Day Offering
Prayer of Blessing
First Lesson
Malachi 3:1-4
Pastoral Prayer
Special Music
Gospel Lesson
Luke 3:1-6
Sermon
The Fear of Home
Holy Communion
Closing Hymn
Have Thine Own Way, Lord! #382
Benediction
Postlude
Sing We Now of Christmas