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.
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Our Summer Worship Schedule has begun! Sunday School will be held from 9-10 AM followed by a 15 minute transition period. We will be having Praise and Worship together starting at 10:15-10:30 AM which will transition into our Combined Worship from 10:30-11:30 AM. Services will be held in the Sanctuary throughout the month with Outdoor Worship on the Last Sunday of each month. This includes the following Sundays: June 26, July 31, August 28th, and our Worship in the Grove on September 11.
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The Jr. High FaithX (workcamp) trip to Harrisonburg, PA starts next Sunday, June 19 and goes until Thursday, June 23.
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Backpack Pals do not need any more food donations for the summer; however, we ask that you continue to donate your plastic grocery bags. Thank you!
- All Aboard! Join us for PVCOB Vacation Bible School Wednesday, July 6th-8th from 6-8pm. Join us for fun, community service, and a reminder of Jesus’ love . . . a love that pulls us through anything! See Evonne Hall for how you can help! Registration is now open on our Church Webpage.
Call to Worship
There are some voices that I will always know and recognize. Whenever I receive a phone call from my mother, from my brother, my sister, I do not need them to tell me who they are. The tone of their voice, the way they address me, say my name, that is all I need to hear.
When Jesus was preaching in the temple, before he ate the last supper with his disciples, before he was taken away to stand trial, he was tested by the Pharisees. They brought before him a woman caught in adultery. Jesus responded by questioning which one of them was truly free of sin, and then refused to condemn the woman himself.
Then he turned to the people and spoke to them saying, “You judge by human standards. I judge no one.” He went on to speak about the nature of sin, how it inevitably leads to death, but then to offer them a new invitation. In John 8:31-32 we read “ Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
It is in this invitation that we recognize the voice of God. It is the invitation to relationship, the invitation to forgiveness, the invitation to wholeness and life. We celebrate in this invitation, and the sound of God’s voice this morning. Let us stand and sing.
Invocation
Lord God Almighty,
We gather this morning as children of our grace,
Washed in your love
and born in your Spirit.
We desire to honor and glorify you.
So open your word and our hearts this morning.
Bring them together so we may be shaped and formed.
Reveal your wisdom.
Remove our ignorance.
Kindle a fire in our hearts
for your righteousness to shine in our living,
a healing light for all creation.
In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.
Children’s Time will be posted soon . . .
Deuteronomy 5:22-33 NRSV
These words the Lord spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; and you said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the Lord our God will say. Then tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.’
The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children for ever! Go, say to them, “Return to your tents.” But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.’ You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.
Response
Based on Psalm 19
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their word to all the world.
The instructions of the Lord are perfect,
reviving the soul.
The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring for ever.
The commandments of the Lord are right,
bringing joy to the heart;
more beautiful than the finest gold,
sweeter on the tongue than the best honey.
Keep us from hidden faults, O God.
Guard us in your ways.
May the words of our mouths
and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In Prayer Together
God of all creation,
We come before you today as the one who has shaped us and formed us;
The one who has bound us together in humility and grace,
The one who calls us each in love and redemption,
reforming us in your new creation.
We confess that we have not always been open to your renewal.
We have judged our friends and our neighbors
sniffed at the splinter in our neighbors’ eyes,
neglected the log in our own.
We have asked forgiveness of you while withholding our own.
Our hearts have been hard, our faithfulness empty.
Teach us anew, the meaning of your love, O God.
Lead us to welcome the fruits of repentance in ourselves as well as others.
Help us to join hands before the cross,
knowing our brokenness is mended before your sacrifice.
Make us your children once more,
seeking after your heart, your grace, and your mercy.
Burn away from us everything that divides us from each other,
everything that compels us to live without compassion
everything that persuades us to neglect the stranger
and forgets those who look our sound different.
Equip us to do the difficult thing:
to see with eyes of your love and mercy alone.
Overwhelm us with love for each other
so that we may be made ready to take up the cross of reconciliation,
so that we may be made ministers of your gospel, and not our own,
so that we may see and know your salvation, alive among us.
Redeem us as children in your family.
We give you thanks for your word and life in Jesus,
for his sacrifice for us, for his teaching.
Open us to the power of resurrection.
Help us to see its force at work in our world,
thawing hatred, melting hearts,
changing our human landscape slowly, forcefully.
Teach us what makes for peace.
Remind us what it is to see the sun rising in the morning;
to feel its warmth on skin,
able to melt frost
and shatter ice covering lakes and rivers.
Remind us how good it is to first see green spikes poking forth from the earth
and to hear the songs of birds in the air.
May we yearn for your salvation
and see it quickly fullfilled.
In Jesus’ power, amen.
You are children of the great high priest,
never alone, never forgotten.
So love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your might.
Bind your heart to
God’s command to love your neighbor as yourself,
and know that you will be well.
God will guard your way. Amen.
-Adapted from Feasting on the Word
