Worship Guide
October 19, 2025
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Creating Disciples of Jesus who Transform the World
ENTRANCE WITH PRAISE
Greeting:
Minister: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!
People: And also with you!
Special Music: Charles
Centering Words:
God’s promises are written on our hearts. Look within, recall them, and claim God’s future of peace.
*Call to Worship:
Leader: Oh, how I love your will, dear Lord. I meditate on your wisdom all day long.
People: Your teaching makes me wiser each day. Your instruction helps me become my truest self.
Leader: How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
People: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light that shines on my path.
Leader: Let us pray.
ALL: Come, Holy Spirit, and renew us in this hour of celebration. We rejoice that you make us your partners in pursuit of a just and peaceful world. With Jesus, we ask the question, “Will there be faith on earth?” Will we settle for mere beliefs, or will we yield to the deep longing for your will to be done, here and now? Teach us to hope, work, and cry out for your justice and peace to be made real. Walk with us, Jesus, until we joyfully reach that day when all God’s children belong to your eternal family. Amen.
Hymn: “Thy Word is a Lamp”
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
When I feel afraid, think I've lost my way,
still you're there right beside me,
and nothing will I fear as long as your are near.
Please be near me to the end.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
Now I will not forget your love for me and yet
my heart forever is wandering.
Jesus, be my guide and hold me to your side,
and I will love you to the end.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
PROCLAMATION OF THE WORD
Words of Assurance
“I will be your God, and you will be my people,” says the Lord.
God accepts us and calls us to accept all God’s children.
In the name of Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
In the name of Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen
*Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 31:27-34
27 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28 And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. 29 In those days they shall no longer say:
“The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
30 But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Leader: This is the Word of God for the people of God
People: Thanks be to God.
WORD AND RESPONSE
Time with Young Friends: “Jesus Loves Me”
Children’s Message: “Be” Phrase of the Day
Hymn: “More Precious than Silver”
Lord, you are more precious than silver,
Lord, you are more costly than gold.
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,
and nothing I desire compares with you.
Lord, you are more precious than silver,
Lord, you are more costly than gold.
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,
and nothing I desire compares with you.
Lord, you are more precious than silver,
Lord, you are more costly than gold.
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,
and nothing I desire compares with you.
and nothing I desire compares with you.
Sermon: “Persistent Faith” Luke 18:1-8
1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
RESPONSE TO THE WORD
Prayers of the People: Joys and concerns
Silent Prayer, Pastoral Prayer
THE SACRAMENTS OF
HOLY COMMUNION
Invitation, Prayer of Confession and Pardon:
Christ our Lord invites to his table
all who love him,
who earnestly repent of their sin
and seek to live in peace with one another.
Therefore, let us confess our sin before God
and one another.
Merciful God,
we confess that we have not loved you
with our whole hearts.
We have failed to be an obedient church.
We have not done your will,
we have broken your law,
we have rebelled against your love,
we have not loved our neighbors,
and we have not heard the
cry of the needy.
Forgive us, we pray.
Free us for joyful obedience,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Hear the good news:
Christ died for us while we were yet sinners;
that proves God's love toward us.
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.
Glory to God. Amen
The Great Thanksgiving
The Lord be with you
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of
heaven and earth.
You formed us in your image and
breathed into us the breath of life.
When we turned away, and our love failed,
your love remained steadfast.
You delivered us from captivity,
made covenant to be our sovereign God,
and spoke to us through your prophets.
And so, with your people on earth
and all the company of heaven
we praise your name and join their unending hymn:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ.
Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people.
He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners.
By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.
When the Lord Jesus ascended, he promised to be with us always, in the power of your Word and Holy Spirit.
On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:
"Take, eat; this my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
When the supper was over, he took the cup,
gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:
"Drink from this all of you;
this is my blood of the new covenant,
poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it
in remembrance of me."
And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith
Christ has died;
Christ is risen;
Christ will come again.
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.
By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. Amen
And now with the confidence of children of God, let us pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.
Amen
Sharing of the Cup and Loaf
Moment of Prayer and Meditation
Prayer of Thanks
Eternal God, we give you thanks
for this holy mystery
in which you have given yourself to us.
Grant that we may go into the world
in the strength of your Spirit,
to give ourselves to others,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
SENDING FORTH
Hymn: “Wonderful Words of Life”
Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life;
let me more of their beauty see, wonderful words of life;
words of life and beauty, teach me faith and duty.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Christ the blessed one gives to all, wonderful words of life;
sinner, listen to the loving call, wonderful words of life;
all so freely given, wooing us to heaven.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life;
offer pardon and peace to all, wonderful words of life;
Jesus, only Savior, sanctify forever.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Benediction
Hymn: “Go Now In Peace”
Go now in peace, Never be afraid.
God will go with you each hour of ev-ry day.
Go now in faith, stead-fast, strong and true.
Know He will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show you be-lieve.
Reach out to others so all the world can see.
God will be there watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
Amen! Amen! Amen!
