Sermon by guest speaker Woody Garvin

Sermon by Guest Rev. Rick Melin

“God wants humanity to be His creature. Furthermore, He wants us to be His PARTNER...God wants light, not darkness. He wants cosmos, not chaos. He wants peace, not disorder.” ― Karl Barth

"The covenant is not only quite as old as creation; it is older than it. Before the world was,before heaven and earth were, the resolve or decree of God exists in view of this event in which God willed to hold communion with man, as it became inconceivably true and real in Jesus Christ" -Karl Barth

"On the basis of the eternal will of god we have to think of EVERY HUMAN BEING, even the oddest, most villanous or miserable, as one whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumtion. If the other person knows that already, then we have to strengthen him in the knowledge. If he does not know it yet or no longer knows it, our buisness is to transmit this knowledge to him." -Karl Barth

"To be pilgrims means that men must perpetually return to the starting-point of that naked humanity which is absolute poverty and utter insecurity...The veritable pinnacle of religious achievement is attaned when men are thrust down into the company of those who lie in the depths. Where this is overlooked, the first must become the last, for only the last can be the first" - Karl Barth

"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world" - Karl Barth

Creed

God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between sisters and brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary.  The church is called to bring all people to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize others, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.

Scripture Readings 

Karen Bart

Old Testament:  Genesis 45:15  (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=611754268)

New Testament:  Luke 15:20  (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=611754296)

Homily: To receive and uphold one another

Scott Starbuck 

Focus:    “The area of the Church stands in the world, as outwardly the Church stands in the village or in a city, beside the school, the cinema and the railway station. The Church’s language cannot aim at being an end in itself. It must be made clear that the Church exists for the sake of the world, that the light is shining in the darkness.” ― Karl Barth 

"Religion is the possibility of the removal of every gound of confidence except confidence in God alone." - Karl Barth

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousandfibers connect us with our fellows; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects" -Herman Melville