Gathering Music
“Get Together”
Words and music by Chet Powers
Welcome and Announcements
Centering
Prelude
“What’s Going On”
Words and music by Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson and Marvin Gaye
Chalice Lighting and Call to Worship
We Meet on Holy Ground
by Richard Gilbert
We meet on holy ground,
For that place is holy
Where lives touch,
Where love moves,
Where hope stirs,
There is holy ground.
We meet on holy ground,
Brought into being as life encounters life,
As personal histories merge into the communal story,
As we take on the pride and pain of our companions,
As separate selves become community.
We meet on holy ground.
Opening Hymn
#318 “We Would Be One”
By Samuel Anthony Wright & Jean Sibelius
Performed by Meetinghouse
We would be one as now we join in singing
our hymn of love, to pledge ourselves anew
to that high cause of greater understanding
of who we are, and what in us is true.
We would be one in living for each other
to show to all a new community.
We would be one in building for tomorrow
a nobler world than we have known today.
We would be one in searching for that meaning
which bends our hearts and points us on our way.
As one, we pledge ourselves to greater service,
with love and justice, strive to make us free.
Time for All Ages
Story “I Am We – A Book of Community”
Written by Susan Verde
Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
Read by Lynn Dove
Song
"Just Imagine"
by Matt Falkowski
Performed by Meetinghouse
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little love
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little love
I’m gonna bring a little love
And you can bring a little love
We’ll put our love together
‘Cause a little means a lot
The world will be a better place when love is what we’ve got
Let’s all bring a little love
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little peace
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little peace
I’m gonna bring a little peace
And you can bring a little peace
We’ll put our peace together
‘Cause a little means a lot
The world will be a better place when peace is what we’ve got
Let’s all bring a little peace
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little hope
Just imagine
Just imagine
Just imagine a little hope
I’m gonna bring a little hope
And you can bring a little hope
We’ll put our hope together
‘Cause a little means a lot
The world will be a better place when hope is what we’ve got
Let’s all bring a little hope
Let’s all bring a little peace
Let’s all bring a little love
Joys and Concerns
Musical Interlude
Offering
Continuing our practice of sharing our gifts with the community beyond our walls, fifty percent of our Sunday plate collections for the month of November will be dedicated to Manchester Senior, Adult and Family Services.
Offering Music
“Imagine”
by John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Performed by Meetinghouse
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Ah
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Reading: Barbara Kingsolver, FB posting, 11.06.24
Truth and love have been smacked down, so many more times in history before today. Truth, because it’s often inconvenient, and love because it is vulnerable.
But truth is like gravity, and carbon, and the sun behind an eclipse: it’s still there. And love stays alive if you tend it like a flame. If you feel crushed by unkindness today, it’s a time for grieving, reaching out to loved ones, noticing one bright color somewhere in the day. Remembering what there is to love. Starting with the immediate, the place and people we can tend ourselves, and make safe. We can’t save everything all at once, but it’s still worth saving something. Because there are so many of us to do it.
And we are all still here today, exactly as we were yesterday. Like gravity, and carbon, and the sun behind an eclipse.
Reflections on Consensus (Kevin Holian-Borgnis)
Musical Interlude
Homily: "Building a Consensus Community" (Kate Kimmerle)
Closing Hymn
#128 “For All That Is Our Life”
By Bruce Findlow & Patrick L. Rickey
Performed by Meetinghouse
For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise;
for all life is a gift which we are called to use
to build the common good and make our own days glad.
For needs which others serve, for services we give,f
for work and its rewards, for hours of rest and love;
we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life.
For sorrow we must bear, for failures, pain, and loss,
for each new thing we learn, for fearful hours that pass:
we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life.
For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise;
for all life is a gift which we are called to use
to build the common good and make our own days glad.
Closing Words
#580 “The Task of the Religious Community”
by Mark Morrison-Reed
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
Extinguishing the Chalice
Closing Circle
May faith in the spirit of life
And hope for the Community of Earth
And love of the light in each other
Be ours now, and in all the days to come
Postlude
“We Are Family”
by Bernard Edwards, Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr.
[Chorus]
We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up, everybody, and sing.
We are family
I got all my sisters with me.
We are family. Get up, everybody, and sing.
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