GATHERING MUSIC

Hyerim Yu

CALL TO WORSHIP

Chris Paige

Love, without it we are like clanging cymbals, Love!
We can speak like prophets, but we still have to Love!
We can build great buildings, but we need to Love!
We can preach and pray, thank God everyday, but we must Love!
Be patient and kind, with no envy in mind, Love!
Don’t be rude or resentful; don’t insist on your own way, Love!
How can we live without it? Love!
How can we sing without it? Love!
Who can serve God without it? Love!
We just stopped by today so that God could remind us to Love!

OPENING SONG

“Love Divine All Loves Excelling”

SCRIPTURE READING – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Yolonda Williams

13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

MESSAGE

“True Love”

Beth Quick

MUSICAL RESPONSE

“It Is Love”

Words: Tanya Bennett
Music: Mark Miller
Julian Wamble, soloist

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Adrian Mendoza

O God,
each day is a little life,
each night a tiny death;
help us to live with faith and hope and love.
Lift our duty above drudgery;
let not our strength fail, or the vision fade,
in the heat and burden of the day.

O God, make us patient and pitiful one with another
in the fret and jar of life,
remembering that each fights a hard fight
and walks a lonely way.
Forgive us, Lord, if we hurt our fellow souls;
teach us a gentler tone, a sweeter charity of words,
and a more healing touch.
Sustain us, O God, when we must face sorrow;
give us courage for the day and hope for the morrow.
Day unto day may we lay hold of thy hand and look up into thy face,
whatever befall,
until our work is finished and the day is done. Amen.

BLESSING

Beth Quick

Friends, now we see in a mirror, dimly. But God is trying to change our perception.
Now we struggle to love others, because we struggle to love ourselves. But God knows us fully and loves us entirely.
So let us practice love until we love fully – our God, our neighbors, ourselves.
Go forth in love. Amen.

SENDING FORTH

Hyerim Yu