Mission and Discipleship

October 5, 2025 World Communion Sunday 17th Sunday After Pentecost Psalm 137 Mission and Discipleship Year C Prelude Greeting Good morning on this first Sunday of October – It is good to see each and everyone of you here. It is also glad to see those who I can’t see on Facebook. No matter who we are – we all are a child of God, Gods grace is with us, and god has called us into this space. Welcome – god is glad that you are here, and wants you to feel comfortable and at home. October always starts our with world communion Sunday – where are reminded that God calls us to be the hands and feet of grace. We re reminded of the stories of others, and as John Wesley used to say the world is my parish – we are all one no matter where we are in the world. This is also the first day of our stewardship campaign – where we are encouraged to think about our commitment to our church. Our theme for the next six weeks will be mission, discipleship and stewardship. This is an interesting time in the church, lots of special things are happening this time of year. Let us begin as we feel the presence of God all around…… Introit Call to Worship LEADER: Come, all who sit by rivers of sorrow, who have hung up their hope and wondered if God still sings. PEOPLE: We come carrying exile in our bones, dislocation in our hearts, and longing in our prayers. LEADER: This is the table where memory is honored, where story is sacred, where strangers become siblings. PEOPLE: We come to taste and see that the Lord is good, to feast on grace, to believe again in belonging. LEADER: table is set. Around the world, across languages and landscapes, a holy PEOPLE: We come not because we are worthy, but because Christ calls us in love. ALL: Come, let us worship the One who welcomes, the One who remembers, the One who feeds the whole world with hope. Opening Prayer Gracious God, with grateful hearts we gather to bring you praise. May your praises fill the whole earth. We are thankful for your mighty works, and for the tender care you give us. We praise you with our voices, our bodies, our instruments, ourselves. We join all of creation to give you praise. In the name of your Son, our Lord, amen. (Peace and Global Witness, Charles Wiley) Song Bread of the World UMH 624 A Sermon for all Ages ITEMS TO GATHER • A globe or world map; • Small pieces of different kinds of bread (pita, tortilla, challah, etc.) or pictures of bread; • Communion cup (or grape juice box) SCRIPT Good morning, friends! Today is a special day in our church called World Communion Sunday. That means Christians all over the world…people in Africa, Asia, South America, and right here in our own city…are all celebrating communion today. We are all different, but Jesus brings us together like one big family! Look at this globe. Can you find a place you’ve heard of or where someone you love lives? (Pause and let a few respond.) People there and there and there and there and even us right here are taking communion today! Isn’t that amazing? And look at this bread…different kinds of bread from around the world. Do you recognize the bread we use here in our church? Just like the bread might look different, the people might look or sound different, yet they’re gathered with church friends to eat the bread and drink the juice. No matter who eats the bread or where they eat the bread, we all remember Jesus’ love for each of us and how he taught us to love like God loves. When we take communion, we remember Jesus and his life. We remember that Jesus loves us, and we are called to love others too. No matter where they live or what kind of bread they eat. So today, let’s thank God for people all around the world, and let’s remember we’re part of one big family...Jesus’ family. church? Just like the bread might look different, the people might look or sound different, yet they’re gathered with church friends to eat the bread and drink the juice. No matter who eats the bread or where they eat the bread, we all remember Jesus’ love for each of us and how he taught us to love like God loves. When we take communion, we remember Jesus and his life. We remember that Jesus loves us, and we are called to love others too. No matter where they live or what kind of bread they eat. So today, let’s thank God for people all around the world, and let’s remember we’re part of one big family...Jesus’ family. Have children repeat after you phrase by phrase as Dear God, Thank you for loving everyone, Everywhere in the world. Help us to share your love, With all your people. We love you God. Thank you for loving us. Amen. Dear God, thank you for loving everyone in the world. Help us to share your love with all of your people. We love you God. Thank you for loving us. Amen Derywhere in the world. Help us to share your lo Affirmation of Faith The Nicene Creed UMH 880 Anthem Scripture Psalm 137 Sermon Mission and Discipleship Introduction: When the World Feels Strange Have you ever felt like the world around you has changed so much that you hardly recognize it anymore? Like the ground beneath your feet has shifted—and suddenly, you’re not quite sure where you belong? That’s where the people of God found themselves in Psalm 137. They were exiles—taken from their homeland, dragged to Babylon, and surrounded by a foreign culture that didn’t share their faith, their values, or their hope. They sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept. Their harps—symbols of worship—hung silent on the trees. Their captors mocked them: “Sing us one of your happy songs about Zion!” But the people couldn’t. Their hearts were broken. Their faith was shaken. And they cried out, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” ________________________________________ I. Exile: A Reality Then and Now For the Israelites, exile was literal. They were torn from Jerusalem, from the Temple, from everything that gave their lives structure and meaning. But exile comes in many forms. Today, exile might look like this: • A church that once thrived but now feels empty. • A believer who feels out of place in a world that has forgotten God. • A person whose faith feels foreign even in their own home. We too sit by the rivers of Babylon at times—longing for a world that once felt more faithful, more grounded, more holy. Illustration: I once visited a congregation that had nearly given up. Their pastor said, “We’ve been shrinking for so long that we stopped dreaming. We hung up our harps.” But then they started a small food pantry. Week after week, hungry families began to come. Soon, worship attendance grew—not because people came for food, but because they found hope. That church learned to sing again in a strange land. ________________________________________ II. The Temptation to Silence The psalm says, “We hung up our harps.” That’s not just a poetic line—it’s a spiritual danger. When life gets hard, when ministry feels futile, when culture shifts away from faith—it’s tempting to go silent. To stop singing. To stop serving. To stop believing our small efforts matter. But discipleship is not conditional. We are called to follow Jesus even in exile. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Faithfulness is not about comfort—it’s about calling. Even when the land feels foreign, the mission remains. Illustration: A missionary in Eastern Europe once said, “We came thinking we’d build a church. Instead, we learned to plant seeds of hope in soil that looked barren. Now, people are singing who didn’t even know the song before.” Disciples don’t hang up their harps—they tune them to God’s heart, wherever they are. ________________________________________ III. Remembering Who We Are The exiles said, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.” Even in Babylon, they remembered who they were—the people of God. Memory became their survival. They couldn’t sing for Babylon, but they could sing to God. Mission begins with memory. Before we can go out into the world, we must remember who sent us. Before we serve, we must remember Whose we are. In baptism, we were named and claimed. In the Great Commission, we were sent: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… and remember, I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:19–20) The exile wasn’t the end of the story. It was the training ground for renewal. ________________________________________ IV. Singing as an Act of Resistance To sing in exile is to resist despair. It’s to declare, “God is still God, even here.” Think about the spirituals sung by enslaved Africans in America. In the deepest oppression, they sang, “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.” Those songs were acts of resistance and faith—songs that said, “You may chain my body, but you can’t silence my soul.” That’s what mission looks like: singing hope into hopeless places. Illustration: When Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Acts 16, they didn’t despair—they sang hymns. And Scripture says, “the prisoners were listening.” That’s discipleship. The world listens when God’s people sing through suffering. Every act of love, every meal shared, every prayer whispered in a broken world is a song of the Lord in a strange land. ________________________________________ V. The Hard Ending: Anger and Hope Psalm 137 ends with disturbing words—violent, vengeful cries for justice. They sound shocking to modern ears. But don’t dismiss them too quickly. They are the honest cries of a wounded people longing for God to set things right. Mission and discipleship don’t mean pretending everything is fine. They mean bringing our whole selves to God—anger, grief, and all—and trusting Him to transform our pain into purpose. Through Christ, God took the cry for vengeance and turned it into a call for redemption. “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) The cross is where exile ends—and mission begins again. ________________________________________ VI. Application: Singing Where You Are So what does it mean to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? It means this: • If your workplace feels hostile to faith—sing there by living with integrity. • If your community feels broken—sing there by serving. • If your church feels small—sing there by loving one another deeply. Illustration: One small rural church in Illinois—just 15 members—started “Mission Meals.” Once a month, they made hot dinners for anyone who needed them. Over time, they served hundreds. One woman said, “I came for food, but I found family.” That’s singing the Lord’s song in Babylon. ________________________________________ VII. Conclusion: Don’t Hang Up Your Harp The world may feel strange. The culture may shift. The church may shrink. But our mission has not changed. We are disciples of the risen Christ, called to love, serve, and witness in every land—familiar or foreign. We sing not because life is easy, but because God is faithful. So take your harp off the tree. Lift your voice again. Because the world still needs to hear the song of God’s grace. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things.” (Psalm 98:1) ________________________________________ Closing Prayer Lord, when the world feels foreign, teach us to remember You. When we are tempted to give up, help us to keep singing. Let our lives be songs of hope, faith, and love— until every land, and every heart, becomes Your home. In Jesus’ name, Amen. sermon written by Chapt GPT version 5 Song One Bread, One Body Pastoral Prayer God of the rivers and the wilderness, of Babylon and Jerusalem, we come to you today with the deep ache of a world that still knows displacement. We pray for all who are wandering, refugees fleeing war, immigrants seeking welcome, souls lost in systems that forget their name. May they find rest. May they find home. We pray for the ones whose faith feels the size of a mustard seed, tiny, unsure, overwhelmed. May they know that even the smallest act of trust can plant forests of transformation. Help us show up, as servants, as neighbors, as those willing to set the table for others. We lift up those in sorrow, those grieving loss, carrying illness, navigating fractured relationships. Hold their brokenness with tenderness. Bring healing where healing can come, and peace where it cannot. We pray for the church universal, each congregation celebrating Communion this day, each voice singing in their own key of grace. Let our unity not erase our difference, but celebrate it, a foretaste of the kingdom where every tribe, every language, every story has a place. And God, where the world breaks trust and justice is delayed, let your Spirit stir us toward equity, let your church rise to embody compassion, and let your table always remain open, never guarded. In the name of Christ who breaks bread with the broken, we pray. Amen.WORSHIP & PRAYER Lord’s Prayer A Stewardship Moment Invite several folks to bring coins or bills from a variety of countries (or use images on the screen), to help identify how congregations around the world are receiving an offering this morning. Whether we share kwatcha, francs, pesos or dollars, we are invited to bring an offering today, to support this congregation and our world-wide ministries. (Describe one or two specific outreach ministries which are underwritten by your offering.) From the smallest coin to the largest check, every gift is valued, appreciated and will be used to sustain the work of Christ in the world. With generous hearts and open hands, let us share our offering. We all work together to build the kingdom of God, to being all to the table of God. We have an opportunity to give, but you also received. In your bulletin in a gospel dollar – to remind us that the currency we give to God is all the same in Jesus eyes, he uses our gifts to spread the gospel to the world and to people who need to hear it. If you take the time to look at the gospel dollar – you will see that it has all of the lessons of the new testament, all of Jesus words to us, all that Jesus wanted us to know. As we gp through the next six weeks, I invite you to hold onto it – to remind us of the importance of mission, stewardship and discipleship. Even though it is in the form of a dollar bill, stewardship is so much more than how much we put in the offering plate. It is how we live out God’s word in our life. It is what we do to serve others. It how well we listen to God. The dollar that you receive is a reminder of what it means to be a disciple of God. I would invite you to hold onto it during the stewardship campaign to remind us of what the next six weeks is all about, you can pass it on to someone else. Some people have used it in addition to their tip to encourage others and to tell others about the gospel. Or you can return it into the basket in the narthex. Let us remember to be generous disciples living in mission together. Offertory Prayer Generous God, You have set a table that stretches from Charlotte to Kinshasa, from Bogotá to Seoul. You have fed us with grace and invited us into your holy community of justice and joy. So now, we offer back to you a portion of what we have received. May our gifts, of money, time, and lives, be used to extend your welcome, to build tables in places long denied a feast, and to nourish hope in hearts still waiting for home. Bless and multiply these gifts for your glory and your people. Amen. Intro to Communion By the rivers of Babylon, they sat down and wept. They hung up their harps and could not find the strength to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land. Psalm 137 doesn’t ease us in; it begins with grief and rage, a people displaced and aching. And yet, on this World Communion Sunday, we come to the table bringing our own songs and silences, our own longings for home, wholeness and healing. The question is not merely how to sing, but what it means to sing when your heart is heavy, your identity is questioned, and your community feels fractured. Psalm 137 is not an abstract metaphor. It names the human experience of dislocation, emotional, spiritual, political. Many people today, immigrants, exiles, refugees, the displaced and the disillusioned, still sit by rivers with harps hung up. And yet this day, across time zones and nations, we lift up the cup and break bread. We proclaim that there is a table wide enough for every pain, every accent, every story. We do not forget the city of God because the table reminds us of where we belong, and with whom. Rowan Williams writes of the Eucharist as a place where we come not because we’re good at being faithful, but precisely because we are not. We come not because we’ve figured it out, but because we’re still lost in many ways. And yet Jesus invites us in, week after week, to sit and eat and remember. To be known. To be transformed. Communion is more than ritual. It is more than nostalgia. It is a prophetic declaration that in a world of walls, there remains a place where the table extends further than we ever dreamed. It is a declaration that in a culture of me-first, there is still a gathering centered around mutuality, grace and a Savior who feeds all without condition. World Communion Service. UMH 13. (do not print all of the words) The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. The pastor may lift hands and keep them raised. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty (almighty God), creator of heaven and earth. You have made from one every nation and people to live on all the face of the earth. And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn: The pastor may lower hands. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. The pastor may raise hands. Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit. He commissioned us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth and to make disciples of all nations, and today his family in all the world is joining at his holy table. The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread, or touch the bread, or lift the bread. On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the cup, or touch the cup, or lift the cup. When the supper was over he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." The pastor may raise hands. And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread and cup. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. The pastor may raise hands. Renew our communion with your Church throughout the world, and strengthen it in every nation and among every people to witness faithfully in your name. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father (God ), now and for ever. Amen. Copyright: “The Great Thanksgiving for World Communion Sunday,” Copyright © 1972 The Methodist Publishing House; Copyright © 1980, 1985, 1989, 1992 UMPH. Used by permission. Announcements Trustee meeting next week Closing Prayer for Facebook Go now as those who have been fed, not only with bread and cup, but with remembrance, mercy, and the wild welcome of Christ. Let your faith, even if only a mustard seed, uproot indifference, plant compassion, and prepare a place for someone else to be seen, to be heard, to be healed. Wherever you go, Babylon or Jerusalem, downtown or dirt road, may you carry the table with you. And may the Spirit of God go before you to stir courage, walk beside you to offer peace, and dwell within you to keep setting the table of grace. Go in love, go in justice, go in belonging. Amen. Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benediction Let us go from this place trusting that God is with us and for us in every place. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the companionship of the Holy Spirit be with you and abide with you this day and forever-more. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, John Wurster) At the end print These worship resources are part of the World Communion Sunday pastor and leader kit. They can be adapted for your context and integrated into your worship service