Worship Connection for January 9, 2022

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.

Contemporary Service

Tradtitional Service

• If you have previously ordered weekly giving envelopes, your box of envelopes for 2022 is in the church narthex. If you do not wish to continue with the weekly envelopes, or, if you have not previously used these pre-assigned envelopes for tracking your giving and would like to start, please contact Sharon Reich.

• Backpack Pals are accepting donations of Pudding Cups and Ramen Noodles! Pudding cups are especially needed. Please leave any donations in the blue bin located in the Narthex.  Thank you!

• LIFE Groups are beginning! Leaders will be contacting those who have already signed up to set up first meetings. To join a group, sign up sheets are available in the Fellowship Hall, or visit www.pleasantvalleyalive.org

• The Church Board will meet for our annual Church Board Retreat in the Fellowship Hall on December 15 at 7:45AM.

• Most of the Christmas Decorations have been taken down around the church. There are a few that still need to be put away, mostly in the Narthex. If you are familiar with how to pack those up, please contact the church office. Your help will be appreciated.

• Get your high-tops and Jordans laced back up! Pleasant Valley is back at it again for 2022 – an Adult Men’s Basketball Team. Games will be played twice (2x) a week from March through May at Eastern Mennonite High School. If interested, please contact James Hall by February 1st, 2022 at the following: jehall8084@gmail.com or call/text (540) 569-6263.

Isaiah 43:1-7 NRSV

Thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth– everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Jesus comes to us as the grain of life,
Fallen to the earth to die,

yet risen again in the sun to bear the fruit of God’s grace.

We come as followers of Christ,

To respond to God’s invitation
To share from what we have been given
Believing that the substance of this world can embody God’s love among us.

We give our gifts to God this morning

Praying that they would rise and bloom
to spread God’s glory throughout our lives.

May the work of our days be God’s work.

May the blessings we share bear God’s grace.

We are blessed by God’s welcome of love. In Jesus, we are invited to new life that sets aside the fearfulness and brokenness that keeps us apart and frees us to share together in God’s love. We share in our giving, in our serving, and in our prayers for each other. What do we have to share today, both in thanksgiving, and for prayer for God’s healing?