Call to Worship
Leader: Come! Listen to the word of the Lord!
All: Help us to receive God’s word and direction for our lives.
Leader: Proclaim the goodness of God’s love!
All: Let our voices and our actions be filled with love.
Leader: Come, now is the time to worship.
All: Open our eyes, our hearts and our spirits this day, Lord.
AMEN.
Offertory
One: Let us pray…
God of compassion and mercy, you claim each one of us as your children. Like a parent, you are joyful when we find joy and your heart aches when we fall. The gifts we give on this day we give in gratitude for your love and guidance. Bless our giving and its use. Amen.
Service July 9th
Scripture Lesson
Mark 5: 1-13 (NRSV)
5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasene. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him, 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding, 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.