Bulletin
South Vernon United Methodist Church
142 Columbus Road, Mt. Vernon, Ohio 43050
southvernonumc@gmail.com www.southvernonumc.org
“Brighten the Corner Where We Are with the Love of Jesus
December 10, 2023, 11:00 a.m
Welcome and Announcements Jonah Mitchell
Prelude Barb Spitzer, Pianist
Bringing Forth the Light of God’s Presence
*Advent Liturgy see insert Ada Carey, Liturgist
Gospel Lesson Luke 1:67-79 Ada Carey, Liturgist
*Sharing the Peace greet one another in God’s love and peace
Our Tithes and Offerings followed by the *Doxology #95
*Offertory Prayer in unison (Mark 1:1-8)
Almighty God, we enter this season from a chaotic world filled with violence, division, and injustice. We hear your prophet Isaiah promising comfort – then John the Baptist calling us to construction projects. We are reminded we are called to prepare the way, to be the designers of peace, the builders of justice, the producers of kindness. As we bring our tithes and offerings to you, we pray that our giving continues to point to the Christ who comes in love and compassion. May our giving in this season reflect our hope for the promised kin-dom to reign in our world. We pray this in the name of the Messiah, Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Sharing Our Prayer Concerns and Joys
Pastoral Prayer followed by the Lord’s Prayer #895
Message The First Songs of Christmas
Zechariah’s Song: Why Do You Need God?
*Taking Forth the Light
*Pastoral Benediction
*Postlude Barb Spitzer, Pianist
* Please stand if you are able.
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In conjunction with our Mitten Tree ministry this year, we will be working with our sister congregations, Beulah and Liberty Chapel, to put together a gift for every child at Columbia Elementary School!
This Thursday at 6 pm, we’ll come together in the school gym to assemble Candy Bar Snowmen with glove hats! They’ll be distributed to each child before Christmas break.
We will need to make 250 of them, so the more help we have, the merrier! Please mark your calendars and plan on joining us!
Sunday, December 24th, 7 pm
Come with your families for
a simple service of carols,
Scripture, and candles.
Advent Liturgy
Liturgist: In days when God’s people
longed for peace, Isaiah declared as
recorded in Isaiah 40:1,
Congregation: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”
Liturgist: We who gather today also seek comfort and peace, yet we are unsatisfied with ideas of peace that tell us to keep quiet and go with the flow. We long for real peace, true peace, just peace.
Congregation: We wait as people who yearn for peace that bears the fruit of community, equity, and flourishing for all.
Liturgist: We light these candles as signs of God’s shocking hope and just peace. May they be beacons calling us to repent and to live the good news of Jesus Christ as we wait and watch and labor for the day when all people can gather together to worship and glorify God. Amen.
(Light two candles of the Advent wreath.)
“The very purpose of Christ’s coming into the world was that he might offer up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas.”
~ Billy Graham
“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
– C.S. Lewis
“At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God’s own love and concern.”
~ Mother Teresa