Announcements 5-19-24
ANNOUNCEMENTS
FAVORITE HYMNS: Do you have a favorite hymn that you would like for us to sing this summer? Let us know which one. You can use the insert in the bulletin or email Kelly.
MONTHLY FOOD PANTRY DONATION: Each month we are asking you to donate one or two items to the food pantry. This month we are asking for shelf-stable breakfast items.
GARAGE SALE: We are planning a garage and bake sale for the end of May. The sale will take place on Friday, May 31st and Saturday, June 1st. This is a fundraiser to help with church expenses and budget.
As you do your Spring cleaning, please keep the church in mind as a place to donate your quality furnishings, clothes, appliances, tools, kitchenware, books, games, and knickknacks. Large furniture, computers, and some other electronics can not be accepted. Please do not start bringing your items to the church until after service on May 26th. Donations can then be placed in the Fellowship Hall.
Fresh homemade baked goods are a wonderful addition to the sale and can be brought to the Fellowship Hall starting on Thursday, May 30th. Please help us spread the word by informing your friends and neighbors.
CELEBRATE OUR GRADUATES: Join us after the service to celebrate all our wonderful graduates with cake and coffee.
PENTECOST OFFERING: We will be taking up the Pentecost offering this week and next week. Please use the included envelope or you can give online on our website.
CONGREGATIONAL MEETING: There will be a congregational meeting at the end of worship on May 26th for the purpose of dissolving the pastoral relationship between John Calvin Presbyterian Church and the Rev. Aaron Ochart.
BIRTHDAYS: Laura Thomas 5/20
CALENDAR:
5/20 – 1:00 PM – Staff Meeting
6:30 PM – Session Meeting
5/21 – 2:30 PM – PW Circle Meeting
5/23 – 10:00 AM – Game Day
5/26 – 10:15 AM – Choir Warm-up
10:30 AM – Worship Service
THE GRADUATES:
MATTHEW FREUDENTHAL: Matthew was born in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on August 16, 2006. He was baptized in Ukraine by the Orthodox Church. He was adopted by Greg and Cindy in February of 2008 and his baptism was blessed by John Calvin Church shorthly after they got back home. He has been active in Boy Scouts and worked at Code Ninjas throughout High School. He will graduate from St. Therese Academy on May 16th where he has been taking TOPS courses. He currently plans to attend Delgado and take computer classes.
CALEB HEBERT: Caleb Hebert is graduating from Brother Martin High School with Honors. While at Brother Martin he was a member of the band for 5 years and was in Mu Alpha Theta. Caleb has received a full scholarship for tuition to the University of Mississippi. He also received a band scholarship for his skills on the French horn. He looks forward to being in the Ole Miss Band. Caleb will be majoring in electrical engineering.
DEBORAH NOLAN: Deborah is graduating from Cabrini High School with a 3.7 GPA and earned Alpha Honor roll and cum laude. She was a member of the knitting club, coloring club, origami club, film club, music club, and drama club, where she was the House manager. During the summers she worked for NOBTS’ summer camp, where she earned hundreds of service hours. She also worked at their daycare after school caring for babies 3 months to 1 year old. Deborah enjoys going out for tea and coffee, shopping, playing video games, and babysitting. In August, Deborah will be attending Millsaps College in Jackson, MS where she will study Psychology.
CHRISTINA THOMAS: Ginny and I are deeply grateful and pleased that Christina will be graduating from Tulane University School of Medicine on Saturday the 18th of May, 2024. She was baptized at John Calvin Church. She Graduated from St.Martin’s High School and did her Undergraduate studies at Boston University. She received a Masters in Bio Sciences from Tufts University and Masters in Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health. Yesterday, she Graduated with her MD from Tulane University School of Medicine. In July 2024 Christina will be starting her General Surgery Residency. Uplifting Women’s Health is her passion. Prayers sought for her continued success.
ALLICE HULL: Alice recently graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with a Bachelor of Arts in Music degree, a milestone she achieved on May 11th. She’s passionate about making music, art, and spending time outdoors. Currently, Alice is excited to stay in New Orleans, where she plans to embark on her professional journey.
2024 Sundays at Six: The Sundays at Six concert series is up and running! We have four artists scheduled for July, with a possible 5th concert in August. Kelly is currently looking for sponsors for those concerts! Sponsors can fund a concert for $200 each, and sponsors will be included on the programs as well as thanked during the concert as part of welcoming remarks and artist introduction. If you are interested in being a sponsor, please let Kelly know as soon as possible!
July 7: Fourth Wave Women’s Choir
July 14: Dody Piper, voice & Sam Garnett, organ
July 21: David Sigler, guitar
July 28: Crescent City Swing Band
Order of Worship 5-5-24
SERVICE FOR THE LORD’S DAY
6th Sunday of Easter
May 5th, 2024 Ten Thirty in the morning
Minister: Aaron Ochart
Liturgist: Beverly Kennedy
Please silence all cell phones.
Bold face indicates congregational participation.
* Please stand, in body or spirit
GATHERING
PRELUDE Let Us Break Bread Together, arr. Chuck Siclair
*PROCESSIONAL HYMN (GTG#837)
What a Fellowship, What a Joy Devine
1 What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
what a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain: Leaning, leaning,
safe and secure from all alarms; leaning, leaning,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
2 O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
leaning on the everlasting arms. [Refrain]
WORDS OF WELCOME
MINUTE FOR MISSON: pw
ADORATION
CALL TO WORSHIP John 15:13
ONE: There is no greater love than this:
MANY: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Loving Lord, you have showered your world with faith, hope, and love. Help us to be faithful to you, to offer hope to those in need, and to love all your children. Amen.
*HYMN (GTG #250) ”Hymn of Promise” PROMISE
- In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold a snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
- There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
there’s a dawn in every darkness,
bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
- In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
MESSAGE FOR THE CHILDREN
*RESPONSE HYMN ( Blue#370 GTG#442) Just as I am
1 Just as I am, without one plea
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou biddest me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come; I come!.
CONFESSION
CALL TO CONFESSION
SILENT CONFESSION
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the grave, you shattered the power of sin and death. We confess that we remain captive to doubt and fear, bound by the ways that lead to death. We overlook the poor and the hungry, and pass by those who mourn; we are deaf to the cries of the oppressed, and indifferent to calls for peace; we despise the weak, and abuse the earth you made.
Forgive us, God of mercy. Help us to trust your power to change our lives and make us new, that we may know the joy of life abundant given in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord. Amen.
DECLARATION of FORGIVENESS
ONE: In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!
MANY: Thanks be to God!
*GLORIA PATRI (GTG #581)
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end, Amen, Amen.
PROCLAMATION
SCRIPTURE LESSON 1 Cor. 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
ONE: The Word of the Lord
MANY: Thanks be to God
SERMON ”Love is Love” Rev. Aaron Ochart
RESPONSE
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH From the Brief Statement of Faith
In life and in death we belong to God. Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve. We trust in Jesus Christ, Fully human, fully God.
Jesus was crucified, suffering the depths of human pain and giving his life for the sins of the world. God raised this Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sinless life, breaking the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to life eternal.
We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God’s image …, of every race and people, to live as one community. But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator. Ignoring God’s commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God’s condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life. The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith, sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all believers in the one body of Christ, the Church.
With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
RECEIVING OF TITHES AND OFFERINGS
OFFERTORY Love Is Love Is Love by Abbie Betinis
*DOXOLOGY (GTG #609)
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures high and low. Alleluia, Alleluia!
Praise God, in Jesus fully known:
Creator, Word, and Spirit one.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
THE SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY COMMUNION
THE GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
ONE: The Lord be with you.
MANY: And also with you.
ONE: Lift up your hearts.
MANY: We lift them to the Lord.
ONE: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
MANY: It is right to give our thanks and praise.
ONE: …Therefore with all creation we sing your praise:
MANY: 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.
ONE: … Praise to you, Lord Christ:
MANY: Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord, Jesus, come in glory…
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 debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
ONE: … The gifts of God for the people of God.
MANY: Thanks be to God.
PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION
*HYMN (Blue #335; GTG #693) Though I May Speak
1 Though I may speak with bravest fire,
and have the gift to all inspire,
and have not love, my words are vain,
as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
2 Though I may give all I possess,
and striving so my love profess,
but not be given by love within,
the profit soon turns strangely thin.
3 Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control;
our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
by this we worship, and are freed.
*PARTING PRAYER
Glory to you, O God: you have won victory over death, raising Jesus from the grave and giving us eternal life. Glory to you, O Christ: for us and for our salvation you have overcome death and opened the gate to everlasting life. Glory to you, O Holy Spirit: you lead us into the truth. Glory to you, O Blessed Trinity, now and forever. Amen.
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
*RESPONSE Sevenfold Amen by Peter Lutkin
POSTLUDE Seek ye first/Canon in D, arr. Annika Bergsma