Hybrid Worship Service, November 16,2025

 Hybrid Worship

16 November 2025

Minister: Rev. Suzanna Bates

Music Director: Dorothy Dittrich

We acknowledge these lands upon which we worship are the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey,

you are welcome here!

Words for Worship

Words of response are in bold & italics

Prelude: Praise to the Lord Almighty                           Stralsund Gesangbuch,                                                                       Joachim Neander (1665, 1680)

Gathering

Call to Worship

Can you imagine unrestricted love?

Free and bold, wild and true, the kind of love that changes you?

Can you imagine a home—safe and bright,

with impromptu dancing, meals around table,

and laughter late into the night?

Can you imagine faith like a compass

that guides the way you shop and vote, the way you love and hope;

that asks questions and yet still believes, even despite uncertainty?

Can you imagine a world where trees, bees, and all living things

grow wild and free?

Where peace is the narrative and hope the currency?

A world where news stories are testimonies and hunger is for learning?

Can you imagine?

Yes, we can imagine.

Today in worship, dare to dream. Dare to imagine what could be.

And pay attention, for God is here, in wandering thoughts,

hopes and prayers.

Let us worship holy God, the great Unbound Love.

Acknowledging the Land

As we gather to worship together, let us respectfully pause to remember we live and work and worship on lands that are the unceded territory of the original peoples, the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

May we live with respect on the land and live in peace and friendship with all its people.

We acknowledge the Elders and community

members who have told the sacred stories and

nurtured faithfulness to the Creator.

Lighting the Candle

We are here.

God is here.

This place is sacred ground.

Hymn: When Long Before Time                                               VU #248

Prayer for Reconciliation

God of Grace, you invite us to dream of a better world,

But instead, we bury our heads in the sand.

We are afraid to recognize how much must change.

We are afraid, because if we know the truth,

then don’t we have a job to do?

So instead, more often than not, we maintain the status quo.

We passively allow things to stay the same.

We don’t speak out; we don’t imagine a new day.

We don’t take time to long for and dream of a world without racism, sexism, bigotry, or shame.

Instead, we allow ourselves to believe that some things will never change.

Forgive us. Show us the way. Teach us to dream.

Teach us to imagine again.

Humbly we pray. Amen.

Mandala Mosaic: Reimagine

Affirmation of Faith

We believe in God the Creator,

who, like a painter with a canvas,

imagined creation and breathed it into being. 

We believe in Jesus, who many years later,

walked this hurting world

and showed us a new way to love.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who prods us and pulls us,

leads us and guides us, carries us

and loves us into new life, day after day.

And we believe in the power of imagination,

a gift from God that allows us to dream dreams, create anew,

start over, try again and live lives of hope.

So, in response, together, as God’s church, we dare to dream.

We strive to love.

We try to imagine a new day.

And we walk together, all with God’s help. Amen.

Hymn: Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness                                            VU #375

Prayer Before the Reading of Scripture

Holy God, we want to see what you see.

We want to see what you see, but we stumble through roadblocks of bias and narrow perspective, fear and limited information.

We are too small to imagine the type of love and beauty you can sow.

Blow the dust out of our ears.

Thaw out the frozen parts of our hearts.                                                  3

Tell the logical arguments we form about what will and will not work to take a backseat. And as you do, breathe fresh air into our bodies and fill our minds with endless possibilities. We want to see what you see.

We want to reimagine this life we’re living. Amen.

Scripture Reading                                                   Reader: Paddy Waymark

Leviticus 19: 9-10; 25: 8-12    (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

The Year of Jubilee!

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the Day of Atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

This is God’s Word.

We open our hearts to this Word today!

Gospel Reading                                                       Reader: Paddy Waymark                          

As is your custom, please stand or sit for the reading of the gospel.

God be with you.

And also with you

The Good News of Jesus the Christ according to Mark.

Glory to you, Christ Jesus

Mark 12: 38-44                                                                      (The Message)

The widow’s offering

Jesus continued teaching. “Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”

Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions. One poor widow came up and put in two small coins—a measly two cents. Jesus called his disciples over and said, “The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford—she gave her all.”

This is the Gospel of Christ.

We open our hearts to Good news today!

Word: Reimagining

Hymn: I Am The Dream                                                             MV #106

Offering

Offertory Response: We Give Thee But Thine Own               VU #543

Dedication for the Offering

Jesus of Nazareth, in scripture we hear of a woman who gave her last coin away. You pointed her out, but you did not say, “Go and do likewise.”

So, we cannot help but wonder - did you point her out to ask,

“Why does this one have so little when others have so much?”

Did you point her out to help us see the injustice that led to her suffering?

Maybe.

So today, for her, and for you, and for every person

who cannot afford to give to God and put food on the table,

we offer our gifts.

We pray that you would use them for your good.

Right what is wrong.

Balance the systems of injustice.

Use these gifts to build the world that we can only imagine

but you can bring forth.

In hope we pray, Amen.

Life & Work of the Church

Prayers of the People                                                          Susan Brockley

Creator,

            Hear our prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and forever. Amen.

 

Hymn: Live Into Hope                                                                VU #699

Sending & Blessing

Go now, inspired by the extravagant love of God.

Live generously, with open hands,

loving one another as if your lives depended on it.

Be good stewards of the gifts you have received,

so that God may be glorified in all that you say and do.

And may the abundant love of God surround you,

may the extravagant grace of Jesus Christ sustain you,

and may the constant presence of the Holy Spirit

inspire and encourage you in every good deed and word. Amen.

 

The peace of Christ be always with you.

And also, with you.

Postlude: O Laughing Light   Poitiers Antiphoner 1746 (S. Dunstan lyrics 1985)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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