Today’s service will be held indoors in the sanctuary as an in-person service and also live streamed at this link. Click on “live” for live stream. Join us!
Due to our summer heat and humidity, we will hold services indoors until some cooler weather returns. As always, join us!
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Gathering Music Polly Dunford
Welcome and Community Notes Sarah Shumpert
Lighting of the Chalice Candle
We light this candle to represent our desire and hope:
To be truly welcoming
To grow in mind and spirit individually and as a community of caring
And to widen and advance the circle of love…
…by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly together.
Opening Hymn “Let Love Be Real” Handout
Tune is Londonderry Air, Words by Michael Forster
1) Let love be real, in giving and receiving,
without the need to manage and to own;
a haven free from posing and pretending,
where every weakness may be safely known.
Give me your hand, along the desert pathway,
give me your love wherever we may go:
as God loves us, so let us love each other,
with no demands, just open hands and space to grow.
2) Let love be real, not grasping or confining,
that strange embrace that holds yet sets us free;
that helps us face the risk of truly living,
and makes us brave to be what we might be.
Give me your strength when all my words are weakness,
give me your love in spite of all you know.
3) Let love be real, with no manipulation,
no secret wish to harness or control;
let us accept each other’s incompleteness,
and share the joy of learning to be whole.
Give me your hope through dreams and disappointments,
give me your trust when all my failings show.
Responsive Litany on individual human worth and global responsibility
(Alternating: With people responding with bold print to Leader)
We gather today to celebrate the spark of dignity within every human being.
We affirm our inherent worth, our creative minds, and our capacity to love.
We reach out to those sitting next to us, weaving individual lives into a supportive community
We affirm our need for connection, our shared joys, and our commitment to carry each other’s burdens.
We open our doors wide, embracing the beautiful diversity of cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives.
We affirm that variety strengthens us, justice guides us, and inclusion makes us whole.
We look beyond our walls, recognizing our deep connection to the earth and the entire human family.
We affirm our responsibility to peace, our duty to the planet, and our hope for a kinder world.
Let us join our hearts and voices as one.
Together, we worship, we grow, and we serve.
Scripture Reading Matthew 10 (selected verses)
Message “Hell: Christianity's Closet Doctrine” Rev. Dr. Steven Morgan
Prayerful Circle of Care
Closing Hymn and Offertory “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Hymnal #339
1) Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on, till victory is won.
2) Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
Yet, with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
come to the place for which our parents sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
out from the gloomy past,
till now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
3) God of our weary years, god of our silent tears,
thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;
shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand,
true to our God, sure to our native land.
Benediction
Discussion
Shalom (“May you be well and whole and in communion with all creation.”)
Shalom, my friends, Shalom, my friends, Shalom, Shalom.
Till we meet again, Till we meet again, Shalom, Shalom. ******************************
Reprinted with permission under One License #A-625711. All rights reserved.
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Calendar of Service -
July 5 - Collection of Members’ “My Stories”
July 12 - TBD
July 19 - TBD
July 26 - TBD
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The 227th General Assembly of PCUSA began Monday, June 22, and will continue through July 2, both online and in person in Milwaukee. Diane Lee is one of six commissioners attending from Foothills Presbytery.
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Looking ahead to the next gathering of the Meet and Eat group, they will get together on Wednesday, July 1, at 5:30 pm at Grand China in Anderson. All are welcome to join!
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Three Nights of Nature speakers:
July 21 - Jessica Bell - Split Creek Goat Farm - Goat species brought from near extinction
July 22 - Jay Keck - SC Wildlife Federation’s Industry Habitat Education Manager, a passionate nature and bird lover since his early teens.
July 23 - Robby Morrow - Geologist with SC Department of Natural Resources - Geological Survey. Co-authored a book, Geology of the Foothills Trail.
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Keep up with the latest news from Foothills Presbytery here.
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Bible Study meets on Mondays at 6:30 pm through Zoom. The topic is Apocalyptic Eschatology along with the Book of Revelation. Dave says he will try to make sense of it! If you’d like to be added to the Zoom invite list, contact Cynthia at cynthiakwarner@mac.com.
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Please remember to donate non-perishable food items to AIM (Anderson Interfaith Ministries). An extra item when you shop is a great help to others in our community.
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Remember in prayer: Mike Johnston and family; Steve and Brenda Swearingen; Jay Lyn Martin and Jerry Meehan; Mary Alice Mundy; Latha Semones; Immigrant families; Victims of all violence, oppression, and injustice; People of the World in ALL walks of life and strife.
Special Prayer for the NACCP Search Committee as they are working to find our next minister.
· Sheol - Hebrew name for the grave/underworld where all dead go
· Hades - Greek name for the abode of the dead
· Gehenna - a physical valley outside Jerusalem associated with darkness
· Tartarus - Greek name of the mythological abyss of the dead
Matthew: Chapter 10
Then Jesus[a] summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;[b] 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”[c] 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,[d] cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.
16 ‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
24 ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 25 it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!
26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.[e - Gehenna] 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
40 ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’