Younger Children’s
Bulletin

Older Children’s
Bulletin

Good morning!  This page is intended to both serve as a continuing worship option for those participating in our worship service from home, and to serve in place of print resources during our in-person worship.  Following the worship service on Sunday, one or more video recordings from the service will be placed on this page, including the sermon.  This may take several hours, due to the time needed to process the videos.  We will email the congregation when the recordings have been posted.  If you would like to be added to our congregational email list, please contact pvcob.alive@gmail.com.

  • Please note these highlights from the July Church Board Meeting:
    1. We will continue worshiping outdoors through Worship in the Grove, on September 13.
    2. We will not be accepting reservations for use of the church building or pavilion during this time, due to sanitation concerns.
  • In March we began collecting materials for assembling CWS School Kits for children in times and places of severe need. We paused that collection in March because of uncertainty how to handle the risk of possible spread of contagion. In the past few weeks, Teri Sumey has worked to catalogue what we collected, and to determine what else is needed to complete our goal of donating 100 School Kits. We would like to try to complete these kits now. We need the following items:
    23 Erasers
    26 Boxes of 24 Crayons
    48 Scissors
    288 Pencils

    We will have some plastic bins with our offering boxes on Sunday morning. You are invited to place School Kit donations in these bins. Any extra donations will be saved for our next School Kit drive. Thank you for your sharing of Christ’s love!

  • Lydia’s House and HIS LIGHT will be having a prayer meeting on Friday, August 7 at 7 PM. Anyone wishing to join this meeting should email Arbo Miller at arbomiller@gmail.com.  Lydia’s House is working with Addiction Recovery Care, looking at possible locations in Augusta County.  Your prayers for this process are appreciated
  • One of Pleasant Valley’s three main goals for 2020 is to implement LIFE groups
    in which we:

    Lean on Jesus as we
    Ignite faithful discipleship,
    Fellowship in love, and
    Encourage Christian growth.

    We would like to begin implementing LIFE groups this fall and need input from each individual in your family.
    Even if you may not be interested in participating right now, we would appreciate your input for future planning.

    Please click on this LIFE GROUP SURVEY link.  

    This will take you to a short, 7-question, online survey that will help us decide how to proceed. This should not take any more than a few minutes to fill out.

     
    Please respond by Friday, August 7.
    THANK YOU for your contribution to Growing Together In Christ’s Spirit!

God Give Us Christian Homes

by Jeremiah Padilla | Streamed with permission. CSPL121366

Call to Worship

One: When people cry in darkness,
All: God answers their search for light.

One: When people are in pain,
All: God is wounded in love.

One: When people hunger and thirst,
All: God sets a feast of justice and compassion.

One: When people do not know where to go,
All: God calls out, to show them his way.

One: God calls and sends, speaking and living in Christ.
All: Jesus reveals and heals,
feeding and leading in compassion.

Let us trust and follow our Lord.

Lord, who hears and responds,
Too often the voices in our own heads are so loud we have difficulty hearing you.

Help us, today, to listen closely to your word.
To find rest when it offers comfort.
To repent when it confronts.
To answer when it calls.

Make room in our hearts for your word to take life.

Prepare us to not just live for today,
but trust in your preparation for a New Creation
envisioned for Earth,
and eternal in the Heavens.

By your Spirit we pray, Amen.

Come, we that love the Lord

Come, we that love the Lord,
and let our joys be known;
join in a song with sweet accord,
join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne,
and thus surround the throne.

Let those refuse to sing
who never knew our God;
but children of the heav’nly King,
but children of the heav’nly King,
may speak their joys abroad,
may speak their joys abroad.

The hill of Zion yields
a thousand sacred sweets
before we reach the heav’nly fields,
before we reach the heav’nly fields,
or walk the golden streets,
or walk the golden streets.

Refrain
We’re marching to Zion,
beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion;
the beautiful city of God.

CCLI License # 1699256

Come, we that love the Lord

by David Tate, Robert Shifflett, Keith Wilson, Paul Wilson, Jeremiah Padilla | Streamed with permission. CSPL121366

Romans 9:19-26
You will say to me then, ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people”,
   and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved”. ’
‘And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”,
   there they shall be called children of the living God.’

In the middle of our parking lot, we have a garden surrounding a peace pole. That garden has been an encouragement to many over the years, and items like the sunflowers blooming right now attract a lot of attention. They have prompted opportunities for conversation with our neighbors, and have reminded many of us of the witnesses of the past.

The garden reminds us of those witnesses, because it does not just happen. It takes elders who started it years ago. It takes a teenager repainting the pole when it had started to grow ragged. It takes committed individuals in our church who saw the need to weed the garden and responded. It takes a property steward who started out cleaning, and ended up repainting the bench. And it has probably take much more that I do not know about.

God is a sower of seeds and a planter of gardens. He sends the rain, and provides the growth. But he has no desire to do all of this for himself. God wants us as partners, and our every contribution brings joy to God, even as it witnesses to and encourages others. Thank you for all of your contributions. You are a part of God’s blessing.

In Prayer Together

God of Everlasting Change, we confess that we are stubborn.
We don’t like change.
We want things to stay as they once were.
Like the people of the Exodus, O God,
sometimes we remember only the good things of the past
and forget the horrors that You have helped us to leave behind.
Like the people of the Exile, O God,
sometimes we have grown comfortable with the status quo
instead of remembering that You have called us into liberation.
Remind us, O God, that You created the earth out of the formless.
You created the world out of chaos.
You made order out of disorder.
You set boundaries to the earth, the sky, the seas.
You made everything with intention.
Even when we cannot feel it, O God, You have formed us out of love.
Even when we cannot perceive it, O God,
You have given us wisdom to seek Your ways.
Even when we fail to recognize it, O God,
You have shown us Your ways of justice and mercy and peace.
Help us to seek You, the Great Creator,
who made the entire universe with purpose,
and made each of us with the intention of love.
Transform our hearts, O God.
Guide us to move into Your ways of compassion, justice, healing, and hope.
In the name of Christ,
who calls us all into resurrection,
into new life now and forever, Amen.

http://rev-o-lution.org, adapted.

Move in our Midst

Move in our midst, thou Spirit of God.
Go with us down from thy holy hill.
Walk with us through the storm and the calm.
Spirit of God, go thou with us still.

Touch thou our hands to lead us aright.
Guide us forever, show us thy way.
Transform our darkness into thy light.
Spirit of God, lead thou us today.

Strike from our feet the fetters that bind.
Lift from our lives the weight of our wrong.
Teach us to love with heart, soul, and mind.
Spirit of God, thy love makes us strong.

Kindle our hearts to burn with thy flame.
Raise up thy banners high in this hour.
Stir us to build new worlds in thy name.
Spirit of God, O send us thy power!

Based on Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,

May God’s way be known upon earth,
God’s salvation for all nations.
God’s justice for all creation.

Let all peoples praise you, O God.

God, our God has blessed us. Amen.