God may be calling YOU, but probably not on your cell phone. Please turn off your cell phone, or

1. Before the worship service begins, please turn off your cell phone. God may be calling YOU, but probably not on your cell phone. Please turn off your cell phone, or put it on vibrate.

2. Welcome! We are so glad you are here!

3. CALL TO REFLECTION • PRELUDE: • A Christmas Medley • arr. Charity Book Putnam

4. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. 16th Century Poet

5. And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest…. Rhyme of the Duchess, E.B. Browning

6. Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow. Flannery O’Connor

7. In today’s culture, a person’s religious conversion is better viewed as a dynamic, organic, messy journey – complete with detours and dead ends and back alleys and U-turns – then as a moment that triggers a series of key decisions. Dave Gibbons, The Monkey and the Fish

8. The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners. Morton Kelsey

9. It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course, it’s a crutch. What make you think you don’t limp? William Sloan Coffin

10. The church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored. T.S. Eliot

11. The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians –

12. when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

13. Since the church finds its life in Christ, he is at its center, and a church defined by its center doesn’t have to worry about the boundaries. M. Craig Barnes, Searching For Home

14. The church is God saying: “I’m throwing a banquet, and all those mismatched, messed up people are invited. Here, have some wine.” Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday

15. PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

16. HYMN • Arise, Your Light Is Come! • # 411 in the Blue Hymnals

17. Arise, your light is come! The Spirit's call obey; Show forth the glory of your God, Which shines on you today.

18. Arise, your light is come! Fling wide the prison door; Proclaim the captives' liberty, Good tidings to the poor.

19. Arise, your light is come! All you in sorrow born, Bind up the broken-hearted ones And comfort those who mourn.

20. Arise, your light is come! The mountains burst in song! Rise up like eagles on the wing; God's power will make us strong.

21. PRAYER OF FORGIVENESS – • (in unison) • Adapted from • Charles Haddon Spurgeon, • 1834-92

22. To come to you is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labor, to come to the goal of our desires and the summit of our wishes. But Lord, how can a stone rise, how can a lump of clay come away?

23. O raise us, draw us. Your grace can do it. Forgive us for the time when we miss the wonder of who you are. Send forth your Holy Spirit to kindle sacred flames of love in our hearts, and we will continue to rise until we leave life and time behind us, and indeed come away.

24. In the name of the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life we pray. Amen.

25. A TIME • OF SILENCE

26. Assurance of Forgiveness

27. Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; • As it was in the beginning, • is now, and ever shall be, • world without end. Amen. • As it was in the beginning, • is now, and ever shall be, • world without end. Amen. • Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. • Amen. Amen. Amen.

28. A TIME WITH THE Children

29. The News • of the • Community

30. Visitors, to First Church! Following worship, please join us on the patio for juice and coffee.

31. Please date, fill out, and pass the red Friendship Register to your neighbor.

32. A Deacon’s Fund offering will be collected today. Please use the envelope provided in your bulletin.

33. Just a reminder — we continue to collect hygiene supplies and gently used or new sneakers and blue jeans for the Jubilee Center. The Center has an urgent need for non-perishable food items.

34. Monday, January 8th: 9:00 a.m. – 10:30a.m. Friday, January 12th: 9:00 a.m. – Noon

35. ANTHEM — • Your Light Has Come • Jon Paige/arr. Joseph Martin • The Anthem is a prayer. • Please, no applause.

36. Bringing It to Completion Moving Toward a Complete Life

37. Thanksgiving for the Word

38. O Word of God incarnate, O Wisdom from on high, O Truth unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky: We praise You for the radiance That from the hallowed page, A lantern to our footsteps, Shines on from age to age.

39. Scripture Reading— Philippians 1:1-11 (New Testament, Page 196 in pew Bible)

40. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

41. I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 

42.  I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

43. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

44. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight

45.  to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

46. Bringing It to Completion Moving Toward a Complete Life

47. * This We Believe • (in unison) • Philippians 2:5-11 This We Believe (in unison) The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the -dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. *Hymn of Commitment - Christ, When for Us You Were Baptized # 70 The News of the Community (Sing 2 times) Holy Spirit, come to us, Kindle in us the fire of your love. Holy Spirit, come to us. Holy Spirit, come to us. Prayers of the People & The Lord's Prayer - (Debtors version) (front of Hymnal, pg. 16) Response - Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.

48. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. This We Believe (in unison) The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the -dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. *Hymn of Commitment - Christ, When for Us You Were Baptized # 70 The News of the Community (Sing 2 times) Holy Spirit, come to us, Kindle in us the fire of your love. Holy Spirit, come to us. Holy Spirit, come to us. Prayers of the People & The Lord's Prayer - (Debtors version) (front of Hymnal, pg. 16) Response - Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.

49. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, This We Believe (in unison) The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the -dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. *Hymn of Commitment - Christ, When for Us You Were Baptized # 70 The News of the Community (Sing 2 times) Holy Spirit, come to us, Kindle in us the fire of your love. Holy Spirit, come to us. Holy Spirit, come to us. Prayers of the People & The Lord's Prayer - (Debtors version) (front of Hymnal, pg. 16) Response - Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.

50. so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This We Believe (in unison) The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the -dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. *Hymn of Commitment - Christ, When for Us You Were Baptized # 70 The News of the Community (Sing 2 times) Holy Spirit, come to us, Kindle in us the fire of your love. Holy Spirit, come to us. Holy Spirit, come to us. Prayers of the People & The Lord's Prayer - (Debtors version) (front of Hymnal, pg. 16) Response - Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me; Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.