Worship Resources

Greetings!

There are two very important events to be aware of this weekend.

On Saturday, May 11, 3 – 4pm we are having the Celebration of Life service for Rosie Briggs. As part of our remembrance of Rosie, we are going to have a PowerPoint presentation of her time together with us. If you have any pictures or Bible verses or quotes that you would like to have included, please contact Pearl Aviles at 520-349-0057

Sunday, May 12 is Mother’s Day. We wish to honor all of the ladies in our lives who have made such a difference in us becoming who we are. We thank God for their presence in our lives.

The full week’s schedule is printed at the bottom of this email. Or you can check out the calendar and watch any of our worship services or read our newsletter on our New Website:www.streamstuc.org

Know that you are loved,

Pr Tom

Welcome

GATHERING SONGS I WILL CALL UPON THE LORD

I will call upon the Lord

Who is worthy to be praised

So shall I be saved from my enemies

The Lord liveth and blessed be the rock

And may the God of my salvation be exalted

The Lord liveth and blessed be the rock

And may the God of my salvation be exalted.

(repeat)

THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE ELW #677

1) This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine;

This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine;

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

2) Don’t you try to blow it out;

3) Hide it under a bushel? No!

4) All around the neighborhood;

5) Hold it high so all can see;

COME, NOW IS THE TIME TO WORSHIP

VerseCome, now is the time to worship;

Come, now is the time to give your heart;

Come, just as you are to worship;

Come, just as you are before your God. Come

Chorus

One day every tongue will confess You are God;

One day every knee will bow;

Still the greatest treasure remains;

For those who gladly choose You now

Repeat verse and chorus

Come, now is the time, Come, now is the time, Come.

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THE CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader: Lift up your hearts, for we are sent to give witness of our Lord!

People: To tell of God’s forgiveness and mercy and power.

Leader: For we are not of the world, but sent to it as Christ was sent.

People: Sent to bring hope and life where once was only darkness and despair.

Leader: Let us lift our praises to God for Christ’s true message of love.

People: Blessed be the name of the Lord!

WELCOME TO WORSHIP

Equip

PRAYER OF CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS

Leader: Gracious God,

People: so often we get involved with the things of this world, and we forget Your purpose for us in it. Too often we get attached to what will not last and we forget eternity; or we see only the here and now and forget that we are set aside not to be of this world, but sent to it. Lord, forgive us and give us the strength to witness for You. In Christ we pray. Amen.

(Silence for reflection and personal confession)

Leader:God, who knows everyone ‘s heart, gives us mercy and life in his Son. Whoever accepts the Son of God receives life in the name of Jesus Christ. Sisters and Brothers, your sins are forgiven; be at peace.

People: Thanks be to God!

PASSING OF THE PEACE

SONG OF PRAISE TAKE MY LIFE

1) Take my life, Lord; I give it to you,

An earthen vessel to fill and to use.

In whatever way you may choose,

Take my life, Lord; I give it to you. (repeat)

2) Take my life; let it be poured out for you,

like a stream in the desert for you,

that others may know that you love them so.

Take my life; let it be poured out for you.

(Repeat verse 1 twice)

Take my life, Lord; I give it to you. (repeat)

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Psalm: 1

¹Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked,
nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!
²Their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and they meditate on God’s teaching day and night.
³They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither;
everything they do shall prosper.
⁶For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked shall be destroyed.

1 John 5:9-13

God has borne witness to the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Whoever believes in the Son of God believes in the witness of God and has the promise of eternal life.

⁹If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. ¹⁰Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

¹³I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION THY WORD

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path

And a light unto my path; you’re the light unto my path

John 17:6-19

In this reading the church hears Jesus’ words on the night before his death. This gospel reports the words of Jesus’ prayer, a prayer for his disciples and for all who would believe in him through their words.

[Jesus prayed:] ⁶“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. ¹²While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. ¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

SPECIAL MUSIC

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE

ADULT MESSAGE 7 EASTER – 5.12.24 – JOHN 17:6-19

It’s an exciting thing to be part of the church of Jesus Christ. We’ve got a good thing here, and we need to let the rest of the world know just how exciting it is.

There’s an old story about a young high school football star who was being recruited by a coach from a major college. The coach had never seen the young man play, so he asked him some direct questions. “Son,” he said, “I understand that you do the passing for your team. Are you a pretty good passer?”

“Am I a good passer?” the boy answered. “Why, I threw the ball 100 times this season and only had one incompletion‑‑and that was because the receiver fell down before the ball got to him.”

The coach was impressed, “I understand that you also played defense,” he said, “are you a good tackler?”

“Am I a good tackler?’ the boy answered. “Why I’ll have you know that in one game this year, I sacked the quarterback three times.”

The coach rubbed his hands in glee. “I understand that you also do the punting for your team. Can you kick the ball pretty well?”

“Can I kick? I’ll have you know that I have to hold back on my punts to keep the ball from sailing into the stands.”

The coach was thrilled. “Tell me, son,” he said, “do you have any weaknesses?”

The boy thought for a moment and replied, “Well, I do have a tendency to exaggerate a little.”

That young man may have overstated his abilities more than a little. But what a refreshing change from most Christians. If anything, most of us have a tendency to understate just how much God means in our lives, and how much of a privilege it is to be a part of the church of Jesus Christ.

Following Jesus is the most thrilling business in the world. God has entrusted you and me with the work of bringing this beaten and battered world into a right relationship with God. He has called us to bring abundant life to hearts that are cold and uncaring. He has offered us the possibility of being part of the building of God’s kingdom in this world. Doesn’t that make you feel really good inside?

Our spirits ought to soar when we contemplate the great honor that God has bestowed upon us‑‑the honor of being called God’s own people and being entrusted by God to reconcile the world to Himself.

In our Scripture lesson from John’s Gospel, Jesus prays for the church. He prays that they will be unified in the work to which they were called. But I wonder if any of those disciples could possibly have imagined that more than 2,000 years later there would be people walking in their footsteps. Two thousand years! Certainly, God honored Jesus’ prayer. To be sure, Christians have bickered and fought with one another, and some have been lost. But the truth of the matter is that there are more of us now than ever before. Those twelve became seventy. And the seventy became hundreds. And now those hundreds have become millions.

Around the world thousands of new people are coming to Christ every day. It’s truly an exciting thing to be part of the church of Jesus Christ. But where does the church get the power that sustains her through the ages? Well, I believe she gets it from three sources.

First of all, she gets it from the world’s need. The world desperately needs what you and I have to offer. Whether in far off places or here at home, the world still needs to know the good news of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Roger Storms, pastor of First Christian Church in Chandler, Arizona, tells this story as an example.

One Sunday, a car had broken down in the alley behind our facilities, and the driver had jacked up the car and crawled underneath to work on the problem. Suddenly, we heard him scream for help. The jack had slipped, and the car had come down on top of him.

Someone shouted, “Call 9-1-1!” and a couple of people ran for the phone. Several of our men gathered around the large car and strained to lift it off the trapped man. Nurses from our congregation were rounded up and brought to the scene. Somehow the men were able to ease the car’s weight off the man, and he was pulled free. Our nurses checked him over. He was scratched up and shaken, but otherwise okay.

When this man was in peril, people did all they could to help – risking themselves, inconveniencing themselves. Whatever was necessary to save this man, they were ready to try. How we need this same attitude when it comes to rescuing those in greatest peril – the danger of losing life eternally. God is sending you to show and tell God’s wondrous love to everyone you meet who hasn’t experienced it. And right here is where God will teach you and inspire you and give you the power to do it.

Next, Jesus says that he has protected all whom the Father has given him, and he asks the Heavenly Father to protect us in his absence. The Holy Spirit, whom we will talk more about next week, is God’s presence, walking with us every step of the way through this life. We are never left alone or unaided.

It’s like the husband and wife from California found out as they drove through Texas. They saw a tornado coming and, of course, they were terrified. The husband pulled the car off to the side of the road and stopped. The couple got out and crouched beside it. The twister was moving directly toward them but, at the last second, veered off across a field, then hit and totally demolished a small wooden house.

The man and woman, still shaking with fright, got up and ran toward the house, which now consisted of little more than kindling wood and a hole in the ground. They looked down into the hole and saw an old man holding on for dear life to a piece of timber, his eyes tightly closed.

The woman called down to him, “Hey down there, are you all right?” The old man opened his eyes, looked around cautiously and said, “I guess so.” The woman asked, “Was there anyone else with you?” The old man replied, “Just me and God, and we was havin’ an urgent conversation.”

That’s the way it will always be, God will always be by your side and you can have an urgent conversation with him any time you want to. He will always be there to answer and to help you. And often times he will do that through the presence of brothers and sisters in Christ who comfort you and support you.

We want to be a fellowship that lifts up one another and then seeks to lift up those outside our doors. We want to be a fellowship that draws people with real problems into its fellowship and surrounds them with Christ’s love. That is the second place the church gets its power, from our fellowship in Christ.

Finally, the church gets its power from the knowledge that God is with us through the power of his Holy Spirit.

I was reading about a pastor who says that he was totally unprepared when he was assigned to his first church. He says, “I will never forget my first shut‑in. She was a dear lady who had been a member of that church for eighty years, but now she was in the declining years of her life. For all practical purposes this dear lady was deaf. She could hear you if you cupped your hands around her ear and shouted, ‘Good morning! How are you?’ She would nod in reply, because she had Parkinson’s disease and her speech was garbled. For all practical purposes she was also blind; and she was bedfast.

“I was not used to being with older people,” said this pastor. “I wanted so badly to minister to her but I felt so awkward. What kind of small talk could we make, even if, with all her handicapping conditions, we could talk? What did we have in common? I was totally incompetent, but I was faithful. I visited her regularly‑‑though each time I felt like a complete fool. I had a prayer to close each visit‑‑but how can you shout a prayer into someone’s ear? It was a totally frustrating experience.

“Eighteen months after my first visit with her, this dear lady died, and I conducted her funeral. Can you imagine my surprise when at that funeral the two daughters of this poor lady handed me a note? On it was scrawled almost illegibly the last message this lady ever communicated to anyone. On it were these words: ‘Please tell my young pastor how much his visits meant to me.’

This young pastor concludes, “I have often looked back on this experience with wonderment and awe. I have come to this conclusion: As I sought to minister to this dear lady, it was not I who was giving comfort to her. It was Christ.”

That is Christ’s promise to us, isn’t it? “Lo, I am with you, even unto the end of the age.” It’s not easy ministering to others, but he will give us the power to overcome our weaknesses and to accomplish the task to which he has assigned us. Where does the church get its power? From the world’s need, from our fellowship together and from the presence of the One who goes with us.

Jesus prayed that God would secure and unify his church. That prayer has been answered in a great and marvelous way‑‑even though the church today is certainly not all that He means for it to be. But we are still meeting the world’s need. And He still is with us. AMEN.

Illustrations and ideas of King Duncan used by permission from

Sermon and Worship Resources @ sermons.com

SERMON SONG WE ALL ARE ONE IN MISSION ELW #576

1 We all are one in mission; we all are one in call,

our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all.

A single great commission compels us from above

to plan and work together that all may know Christ’s love.

2 We all are called for service, to witness in God’s name.

Our ministries are diff’rent; our purpose is the same:

to touch the lives of others with God’s surprising grace,

so ev’ry folk and nation may feel God’s warm embrace.

3 Now let us be united, and let our song be heard.

Now let us be a vessel for God’s redeeming Word.

We all are one in mission; we all are one in call,

our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all.

Text: Rusty Edwards, b. 1955

Text © 1986 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission.  Duplication in any form prohibited without permission or valid license from copyright administrator.

Respond

AFFIRMING OUR FAITH APOSTLES’ CREED

People: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s 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 to the dead. On the third day he rose again; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He will 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 sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen

PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

P: Rejoicing in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we pray for the witness of the church, the wholeness of creation, and all who are in need.

A brief silence.

P: End divisions within your church, O God. Open us to receive your testimony. Make us one as you are one. Make our joy complete. Lord, in your mercy,

C: hear our prayer.

P: We pray for those who are homeless, naked, hungry, imprisoned, abandoned, or sick (especially). Send us to shelter, clothe, feed, and visit those in need. Make us your healing and compassionate presence in the world. Lord, in your mercy,

C: hear our prayer.

P: We pray for mothers we love and mothers we struggle to love. For adoptive mothers, stepmothers, and foster mothers. For those who long to be mothers. For everyone who has mothered us in the faith. Give rest, healing, wisdom, and strength, mothering God. Lord, in your mercy,

C: hear our prayer.

Here other intercessions may be offered.

P: You give us eternal life in your Son. When doubts and fears arise, give us peace in the resurrection promise. Sanctify us in your truth and unite us with all the saints. Lord, in your mercy,

C: hear our prayer.

P: We entrust all our prayers to you, gracious God. Receive them by the power of the Holy Spirit and the love of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

C: Amen.

WE WORSHIP GOD THROUGH OUR GIVING

Next, we will receive the gifts of forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation from our Lord Jesus, and respond gratefully with our offerings. Offering plates are in the front next to the aisle for your gifts. You may also donate online on the website, by text (the phone number is on the website), by mail, or personally deliver it to the office. Lives are changed through the ministry enabled by your gifts. Thank you for your continued support and partnership in the Gospel. Let us pray

PRAYER OF BLESSING

P: Loving God, we praise you for blessing and protecting our lives through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. We offer these gifts as signs of our gratitude and our commitment to live lives shaped by holiness and love. In Jesus’ name, we pray.

C: Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and 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 and ever. Amen.

HOLY COMMUNION

COMMUNION SONG SING ALLELUIA

1. Sing alleluia to the Lord, sing alleluia to the Lord

Sing alleluia, sing alleluia, sing alleluia to the Lord

2. Jesus is risen from the dead

3. Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth

4. He’s coming back to take us home

5. We give thanks to God our King

6. He died for us, we’ll live for Him

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Send

BENEDICTION SONG AS YOU GO ON YOUR WAY

As you go on your way may Christ go with you.

May he go before you to show you the way;

May he go behind you to encourage you;

Beside you to befriend you;

Above you to watch over;

Within you to give you peace.

In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

STREAMS THEME SONG

See the streams of living waters,

springing from eternal love,

well supply your sons and daughters,

and all fear of want remove.

Who can faint while such a river

ever will their thirst assuage?

Grace which, like the Lord, the giver,

never fails from age to age.

SENDING BLESSING

Leader: Greet your worshiping neighbor. Go in peace and

Serve One Another!

People: Thanks be to God!!!

Saturday, May 11

3 – 4pm Rosie Briggs Service

Sunday, May 12

Mother’s Day

9:30 – 10:30am Adult Bible Study & Sunday School

10:45 – 11:45am Livestream Worship in-person

12 – 1pm Education Committee

3 – 4:30pm Zoom Bible Study

Tuesday, May 14

9 – 11am Streams Food Pantry

10:30am – 12pm Bible Study, Office Conference Rm

7 – 9pm Native American Flute Circle, Streams Sanctuary

7 – 8pm Stewardship Committee

Wednesday, May 15

8:30 – 11:30am Workday

9 – 11:30am Quilters – Large Fellowship Hall

11am – 12pm VdC Grouping, Office Conference Rm

5:30 – 6:15pm Friends & Family Dinner & Movie

Thursday, May 16

9 – 11am VdC Grouping, Office Conference Rm

6 – 7pm Bells Angels Practice

7:15 – 8:15pm Joy Choir Practice

Sunday, May 19

9:30 – 10:30am Adult Bible Study & Sunday School

10:45 – 11:45am Livestream Worship in-person

3 – 4:30pm Zoom Bible Study

5:30 – 8:30pm Youth groups