Livestream Worship Sunday – 10:30 a.m., Dec. 14, 2025
Join us on the Trinity UCC Tiffin: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOKE6R8pcJpPIo1r3hn39OQ
Service may also be viewed on Facebook.
If you can't join us at 10:30 a.m., the service will also be available for viewing later on our channel.
Mission Statement: Trinity United Church of Christ: living and sharing God’s compassion, justice, and peace in all the world.
Liturgist: Donna Dorsch
CONTEMPLATIVE MOMENT
LIGHTING THE CANDLES
ANNOUNCEMENTS/JOYS AND CONCERNS
PRELUDE: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" Roberson
ADVENT CANDLE LIGHTING
CALL TO WORSHIP
God knows us and our hungers. God loves us like a father and nurtures us like a mother. God draws us to each other and claims us as the people of God. Knowing this, let us worship God. Thanks be to God!
*HYMN OF ADORATION "Awake! Awake, and Greet the New Morn" 107
Awake! Awake and greet the new morn, for angels herald its dawning.
sing out your joy, for Jesus is born, behold! the Child of our longing.
Come as a baby weak and poor, to bring all hearts together,
to open wide the heavenly door, and lives now inside us forever.
To us, to all in sorrow and fear, Emmanuel comes a-singing,
whose humble song is quiet and near, yet fills the earth with its ringing.
Music to heal the broken soul and hymns of loving kindness,
the thunder of the anthems roll to shatter all hate and injustice.
In deepest night Christ's coming shall be, when all the world is despairing,
as morning light so quiet and free, so warm and gentle and caring.
One without voice breaks forth in song, a lame one leaps in wonder,
the weak are raised above the strong, and weapons are broken asunder.
Rejoice, rejoice, take heart in the night, though cold the winter and cheerless,
the rising sun shall crown you with light, be strong and loving and fearless;
Love be our song and love our prayer, and love, our endless story,
may God fill every day we share, and bring us at last into glory.
INTROIT: The Lord is my light, my light and salvation; in God I trust, in God I trust.
PRAYER FOR TRANSFORMATION AND NEW LIFE
Reconciling God, it is sometimes hard to recognize your Spirit. With 24-hour news reporting, endless click bait, algorithms that divide and enrage, and social media bubbles that make us coarse, self-righteous, and traumatized people, we are often unable to recognize you in the world around us and within those different from us. Break open our hearts anew, so that we can recognize your divine spark within everything and everyone. Give us a fresh start. Refresh our weary souls by the vast love of your Spirit. Reconciling God, help us respond with compassion instead of reacting in fear.
WORDS OF GRACE
Though we may be unable to see and understand, speak with care, and act with compassion, God’s Spirit never stops doing this on our behalf. Sink into the Spirit of God and begin again. Get into the flow of God’s healing water. Step out of the calculating and divisive “small mind” into the spacious and wise “big mind” of Christ. Through the Love of God, all things and everyone belongs. Amen! May it be so!
*GLORIA "Glory to the Creator" 759
*PASSING THE PEACE
CHOIR ANTHEM: "A La Nanita Nana" arr. Norman Luboff
READING OF SCRIPTURE
Hebrew Testament Psalm Psalm 146:5-10, page 719
Hebrew Testament Lesson Isaiah 35:1-10
Greek Testament Epistle Lesson James 5:7-10
Greek Testament Gospel Lesson Matthew 11:2-11
HOMESTYLE MOMENT
SERMON The joy of the Lord Rev. Karsten
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH 886
We are not alone. We live in God’s world.
We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.
We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
*HYMN "My Heart Sings Out with Joyful Praise" 106
My heart sings out with joyful praise to God
Who raises me, who came to me when I was low and changed by destiny.
The Holy one, the Living God, is always full of grace to those who seek their Maker’s will in every time and place.
The arm of God is strong and just to scatter all the proud. The tyrants tumble from their thrones and vanish like a cloud.
The hungry all are satisfied; the rich are sent away. The poor of earth who suffer long will welcome God’s new day.
The promise made in ages past at last has come to be, for God has come in power to save, to set all people free.
Remembering those who wait to see salvation’s dawning day, Our Savior comes to all who weep to wipe their tears away.
PASTORAL PRAYER and LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, Who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
*DOXOLOGY AND PRAYER OF DEDICATION
*HYMN "Come, O Long-Expected Jesus" 122
Come, O long-expected Jesus, born to set all people free;
From our fears and sins release us; Grant us your true liberty.
Israel’s strength and consolation, Hope to all the earth impart;
Dear desire of every nation, Enter every longing heart.
Born all people to deliver, Born a child, you came to reign!
Born to rule on earth forever, come, Be known to us again.
By our own eternal Spirit, Come to claim us as your own;
By your all sufficient merit, Let us share your cross and crown.
*COMMISSIONING AND BENEDICTION
POSTLUDE Postlude on Stuttgart Smith
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