BETHEL COLLEGE MENNONITE CHURCH
March 3, 2024
Third Sunday of Lent
Christ Among Us, Showing Us Justice
Christ Candle Lighting
Centering Music—There is no Shadow (Brenda Portman)–Will Wiebe-Friesen
Call to Worship and Land Acknowledgement–Margaret Toews
One: Come rule makers. Come rule breakers. Come, you who are still finding your way.
Many: We come into God’s house.
One: Come. Whether you speak with wise words or with wisecracks, you are made in the image of God.
Many: We come to hear God’s Word.
One: Some of us like certainty and structure.
Many: Some of us don’t.
One: We come by different roads.
Many: Yet we are here together.
One: Prepare to meet your Maker, and your match. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is greater than human strength.
Many: We come to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.
*Hymn—What Is This Place—VT 22
Children’s Conversation—Kathy Stucky
Anthem—Precious Lord, Take My Hand (arr. Jack Schrader)–Chancel Choir—Riley King, director; Will Wiebe-Friesen, accompanist
Scripture Reading—Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22—Naomi Koontz
Sermon—Rule Makers and Rule Breakers–Roger Neufeld Smith
*Hymn—O God We Read the Holy Law—VT 571
Prayers of God’s People
Prayer of Confession
One: We often miss the beauty in your work, God.
Many: Forgive our distracted hearts.
One: When we put our trust in other things
Many: remind us of your love and care.
All: Bring joy to us once again.
One: May the meditations of our hearts
Many: be pleasing on your sight,
All: our Rock and our Redeemer.
*Hymn—Sing a New World Into Being—VT 809
Benediction
Postlude
Audio-visual—Ben Lichti
Land Acknowledgement from words by Mark Charles and VT #878
As we do on the first Sunday of each month, we acknowledge that we worship on the land of the Kanza, Osage, and Wichita.
We thank them for their care and respect for this land and acknowledge the injustice of their forced removal.
We ask the Spirit to heal our histories and find new paths of right relationships with them and all of creation.