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Sample Services

Fourth Order of Service

Prelude

Call to Worship

Come. Let us be joined in seeking the aspirations of the heart. Come. Let us be joined in giving voice to those melodies which can heal the wounded soul. Come. Let us be joined in speaking the words which set us free.
         -- Calvin O. Dame

Please rise.

* Hymn - SLT #273 - "Immortal, invisible"

Please be seated.

Chalice Lighting - Read in unison

We light this chalice in the service of the truth,
In the celebration of love,
And in honor of the spirit that makes us one.
         -- Elwood R. Sturtevant

Children's Story

Song - SLT #402 - "From you I receive"

Children may go to their classes

Reading

Responsive Reading - SLT #666

Despair is my private pain, born from what I have failed to say, failed to do, failed to overcome.
Be still my inner self. Let me rise to you, let me reach down into your pain and soothe you.

I turn to you to renew my life.
I turn to the world, the streets of the city, the worn tapestries of brokerage firms, drug dealers, private estates, personal things in the bag lady's cart, rage and pain in the faces that turn from me, afraid of their own inner worlds.

This common world I love anew, as the life-blood of generations who refused to surrender their humanity in an inhumane world courses through my veins.
From within this world my despair is transformed to hope and I begin anew the legacy of caring.
         -- Thandeka

Prayer

O Thou, whose kingdom is within, may all thy names be hallowed. May no one of them be turned against the others to divide those who address thee. May thy presence be made known to us in mercy, beauty, love and justice. May thy kingdom come to be in the life of all humankind. May it come with peace, with sharing, and in a near time.

Give us this day our daily bread, free from all envy and alienation, broken and blessed in the sharing. Keep us from trespass against others, and from the feeling that others are trespassing against us. Forgive us more than we have forgiven.

Deliver us from being tempted by lesser things to be heedless of the one great thing: the gift of thyself in us. Amen.
         -- Jacob Trapp; the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13) recast

Silence

Anthem/Musical Interlude

Sermon

Offertory

Announcements

Please rise

* Hymn - SLT #331 - "Life is the greatest gift of all"

* Closing Words

When we say, "Go now in peace," we mean the peace that asks us to stop grasping after power over and the peace that demands that we live fully, that we love with a fierce love, that we hope with a bold hope, that we pray and sing and struggle.

Remember this: within and all around us is our Source; may we return to it, heed it, and honor it. Amen.
         -- Amy McKenzie Quinn, adapted

* Sung Response - SLT #400 - "Shalom, havayreem!"

Postlude

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Source: Based on an Order of Service by Unitarian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; in Commisson on Common Worship, Leading Congregations in Worship: A Guide, UUA 1983. Additional hymns and readings from Singing the Living Tradition, UUA 1993.

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