M&S Ideas

The following prayers and ideas from a variety of sources are offered for use in your worship services throughout the year. You are encouraged to highlight M&S in as many services as possible. Suggestions include a Minute for Mission each Sunday; introducing children and youth to the work of their church through M&S stories and activities; remembering the work of our church in your prayers; including M&S in your music; asking your members to regularly support the work of their United Church of Canada in the weekly offering.

Many of these worship ideas are based on the rainbow colours of our M&S logo.

The Mission and Service Fund is the HEART of the United Church, and it needs our continuous and generous support to keep beating!

Prayers

Prayer of Confession

Holy Friend,
if we carry excess baggage on life's journey,
teach us to travel more simply.
If our possessions own us,
free us to trust you and share with others.
If our need for control keeps us anxious and demanding, help us to relax.

Holy Friend, make us simple:
simple in trust, simple in life, simple in commitment to you.
Prepare us for your mission.
Allow us to join your labour to heal the hurting,
feed the hungry, and bring good news to the poor.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ,
in whose name we are baptized and sent on mission and in service. Amen!

From chapel service by Meredith Fraser

Words of Assurance

God's bow is in the heavens
God's promise is in our hearts.
Rejoice that our church responds to God's call;
Our Mission and Service Fund is a rainbow to the world.

Invitation for the Offering

"Joy" and "giving" may not go hand in hand for some of us. Our faith tells us otherwise.
Joyful giving is an integral part of Christian Stewardship and a Christian lifestyle.

The Mission and Service Fund is the way we, as United Church people, invest in God's vision for ourselves and the world.

Thank you for the strength your presence gives to those sitting near you.
Today let us offer strength to those near and far through our gifts to the Mission and Service Fund.

Based on a worship service from Manitou Conference

Invitation to a Confessional People

Let us confess together.
Merciful God,
you call us to be your church,
but we confess we find it hard to respond.
Seeking justice and resisting evil
are not always priorities.
Often we are not aware of your presence,
and do not celebrate it.
While we speak of living with respect in creation,
we are often unwilling to live according.
Loving and serving others
is always more complicated than we expect.
We are not sure that our lives proclaim the power of Jesus,
as our judge and our hope.
Forgive us, O God, you who give us so much
through the love of this community,
Help us to be the kind of church you intend,
a sign of your kingdom in the world.

Prayer from "Celebrate God's Presence" #171004 p 674

Declaration of Hope

Do you resolve to heed God's call to be the church in the world, to love and serve others?
We do.

Assurance of Pardon

As we forgive, so are we forgiven.
As we love, so are we loved.
Rejoice in our call.
Rejoice in the difference we make through the Mission and Service Fund.

Sharing the Peace

Today we celebrate the Mission and Service Fund-
our faith in action, our love made known.
Let us share words of peace, promise, and possibilities.

Call to Worship I

Come people of vision,
people of great dreams.
You are God's rainbow children,
children of possibility and promise.

Prayer of Approach I

Endlessly loving, endlessly creating God,
we are a people remembering lost dreams,
or holding on to faded and tattered ones.

Remind us that you are the God of rainbow possibilities,
and we are a people with second chances and endless beginnings.

In your mercy we can dust off our dreams
and mend their ragged edges.
We can again see clearly your rainbow of promise.

Your kingdom will come
Your peace will be. Amen

We are mindful of God's rainbow promise.
The M&S Fund is our rainbow promise to the world.
We celebrate that we help usher in God's kingdom and peace throughout the world. We do this as united children of God, as The United Church of Canada, through the Mission and Service Fund.

From a worship service by Pat Milliken

Call to Worship II

Come children of God.
Come with your hopes, your concerns, and your differences.
United we praise God on this joyful day.
Together we work towards God's vision.

Prayer of Approach II

God of rainbow dreams,
you show all around us the colours
of the seasons—red, orange, yellow, blue green, violet.

In nature's colours are reminders that you envision a world
where differences are not a source of dissension, but a source of beauty.

You point us, God, to a place
where we celebrate our diversity,
and we are not afraid of our uniqueness.

As agents of your mission and ministry,
remind us of the power of your vision,
and the importance of our dreams.

Through our church we make real the hopes and aspirations of your people everywhere. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen

Worship Service by Pat Milliken & Bill Steadman

Prayer of Approach III

One: God's rainbow arches over me; I fear nothing anymore.
For what can conquer God?

All: Before the beginning, and after the end, God is, and God will be.

One: Everything works together for God's goals.

All: If God is with me, nothing I do is wasted;

One: Like sunbeams dancing on a lake,
even my weakest efforts will gather into the Glory of God.

All: Gales may buffet me, and storm clouds may darken my face,
but God will never give up on me. We gather our efforts together as United Church in our M&S Fund.

From Hats, Rainbows & Logos, Manitou Conference

M&S Prayers

God of Mission and Service:
Jesus showed us Mission by crossing every border he faced.
He crossed the line in ministry to women and children,
To the diseased and dying, to prostitutes and down-and-outers,
And to those on the Emmaus road.
Jesus showed us Service by offering himself.
He offered himself by washing the disciples' feet,
by teaching and healing, by breaking bread and passing the cup, and by the cross.
Strengthen us to share this same Mission and Service through our faith and our fund. Amen

Loving God,
make us true partners in your creation.
Help us to recognize that the gifts we give
through the Mission and Service Fund unite us in your work,
For in this way we, too, are contributing to the struggle for peace and justice
around the world. Amen

From Minutes for Mission 2002

O Holy Creator,
who is among us in flesh, in blood and in spirit,
you call and strengthen us within faithful community,
wherein we find hope, refreshment, and inspiration
We thank you for your gift of the Mission and Service Fund
and all the work of love, grace, and justice it makes possible.
In Christ's name we dedicate ourselves
to this ministry you have set before us,
in which we experience the blessings of your people. Amen

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Hymns

• VU87—I Am the Light of the World
• VU581—When We are Living
• Other suggestions in Minutes for Mission 2003 page 74
• "Joy & Thanksgiving", original song by Paul Rumbolt M4M pages 72-73
• See also Minutes for Mission 2004 page 9.

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Readings and Reflections

Readings from Voices United

• Psalm 112—VU 834
• Psalm 119 Part Two—VU 838

Responsive Reading

In the middle of this world with the stark reality of what is possible, what is not,
it is a gift to dream.

It is a gift to dream,
to reach towards rainbow colours of possibility.
Red and yellows, blues and greens,
dancing in the light of hope and promise.

So we choose to dream,
to fashion new possibilities,
to shape new beginnings,
to reach for the rainbow promise of God-with-us.

We dream
and we join a company of dreamers,
the wise, the foolish,
the confused, the knowing,
venerable saints and charming rogues,
all those who have stretched towards a new possibility.

Make us instruments of your will.
Through our work together let us fashion possibilities for the world,
new beginnings for others.

We are united in dreams, united in mission, united in service.

Adapted from a worship service by Pat Milliken

Thoughts on Covenants and Rainbows

The rainbow is a glimpse of grace and a hint of hope at the end of the Flood Story,
a powerful symbol of peace and reconciliation.
The ancient rabbis understood the story to say that Yahweh has set aside the bow after shooting all his arrows of lightning - an act of disarmament, peace, shalom.

In a desert county, water is a word for Life.
In dark times, light is a word for God's Presence.
The rainbow is a combination of water and light.
The bow in the sky, the sign of the covenant, is a statement of God's life-giving presence, God's life-wish for us.

Tom Sherwood, in Thursday Thoughts