july 28,2026

Guest Preacher: Rev. Elae Moss Benedetto

Please use this Order of Service to easily follow the service online.

CLICK HERE FOR HYMNS (or scroll to the bottom)

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter into you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Our opening Prelude invites you into a time of quiet reflection.

Prelude: Richard Harper

Chalice Lighting: Searching for Justice and Hope - By Summer Albayati

“Verily with hardship comes ease…” (Quran; 94:5–6)

Lighting this chalice may feel difficult today.

This symbol of justice, known to be a light of hope for the marginalized,

a message of sanctuary for the oppressed,

a flame that feels lost or diminished somehow.

How do we rekindle this fire of compassion?

How do we rekindle this fire of mercy?

A famous verse within the Qur’an tells us that

With hardship, comes ease

With hardship, comes ease

We welcome the ease, oh God of justice

We welcome the ease, oh Spirit of love

We welcome the ease and rekindle this flame

From our tears, our quiet suffering,

from our collective prayers for those who cry for freedom.

We welcome the ease and rekindle this flame

on behalf of those who feel abandoned and betrayed.

We welcome the ease and rekindle this flame

for all of the children who ask, why can we not live in peace as other children do?

May lighting this chalice today, no matter how difficult it may feel,

help us to rekindle compassion and mercy within the deep crevices of our hearts

So that we can

Once again Bring justice and hope to a world

struggling to find its humanity

Struggling to find its soul

Opening Hymn: Come, Come, Whoever You Are - Words from Rumi (STLT #188)

Welcome & Announcements

Call to Worship: On finding ourselves in the woods

Leader: We came here hoping for a map.

People: We found, instead, a compass.

Leader: The maps we were handed were drawn by people who never left the road.

People: We have always known the road is not the only way home.

Leader: Some of us learned to navigate by the body — before we had the words for it, before anyone gave us permission.

People: We read the wilderness in our own skin, long before it made sense to anyone else. Leader: The world calls this getting lost.

People: We call it finding true north.

Leader: So let us not fear the disorientation of this hour —

People: for the future must enter us long before it arrives.

Leader: Let us not mistake the absence of a path for the absence of a way.

People: Where there is no path, we will orienteer. We will move — and the moving will make the place.

Leader: Come, then, into the sacred wilderness of Now —

People: where every wrong turn has been a teacher, and every unmapped mile, a mercy. Leader: We do not worship certainty.

People: We worship the God who meets us in the thicket, off the trail, unrehearsed.

Leader: So let us get lost, together —

People: and trust that this, too, is how we are found.

All: Amen.

Prayer of Invocation - adapted from "A Prayer for (Y)Our Prophetic Body"

First Sacred Reading Romans 12: 1-8 (First Nations Version)

BECOMING A TRUE HUMAN BEING

1 So then, my sacred family members, because Creator has shown us such mercy and kindness, I now call on you to offer your whole beings, heart, mind, and strength, to the Great Spirit as a living sacrifice. Do this in a sacred and spiritual manner that will make his heart glad. 2 Do not permit the ways of this world to mold and shape you. Instead, let Creator change you from the inside out, in the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. He will do this by giving you a new way of thinking, seeing, and walking. Then you will know for sure what the Great Spirit wants for you, things that are good, that make the heart glad, and that help you to walk the path of becoming a mature and true 3 human being.

WISDOM FROM SMALL MAN [Paul] 3 Because Creator, in his great kindness, has made me a message bearer, I give this message to each of you. Do not think too highly of yourself. Instead, understand that the Great Spirit calls us to different purposes in answer to our trust in him. 4 For just as our bodies have many members and each member has a different purpose, 5 it is the same way with the body of the Chosen One. We are members of his body, and each member belongs to all the others.

USE YOUR GIFTS IN A GOOD WAY

Creator’s gift of great kindness has been poured out on us in many ways, giving us different kinds of gifts. If your gift is to speak the heart and mind of the Great Spirit in a prophecy, then let trust guide your words. 7 If your gift is helping others, then give yourself to help others. If teaching is your gift, teach well. 8 If your gift is to speak courage and strengthen the hearts of others, then speak bravely. The one whose gift is giving should not hold back. If your gift is leading, lead with honor. And the one whose gift is showing mercy and kindness to others should do so freely, with a glad heart!

Passing of the Peace Sharing of Our Joys & Concerns/Pastoral Prayer

Offering & Doxology: We Give You But Your Own - NCH # 785

We give you but your own, whate'er the gift may be; All that we have is yours alone, we give it gratefully.

Second Sacred Reading: Renee Gladman - in “Living,” from Theory of Moving Houses

I am now ready to talk about our portals, how we know they are there, and how we name them. … In order to know where we are we must be in motion. Movement creates place and thus for there to be portals there must already have been motion: for a long time, but probably at the same time. I don’t think I can say why we are in motion, or rather why we want to be present. … Why do we want to be in the present? Have we asked this? Do we know? … I don’t understand the purpose of the universe, if it literally takes all our lives or many lifetimes combined to reach any galaxy outside of our own; it’s as if we’re not supposed to know the universe. But then why are we surrounded by it? Maybe the universe is not for us. I can’t stand the pressure of not knowing or seeing the infinite enormity that surrounds the definite enormity we call Earth. It’s as if we are one word, probably a preposition, within a vast, maximal novel. If you are only an “at” or an “on,” how do you know where you are going and what you want to do?

Hymn of Reflection: Spirit of Life - Carolyn McDade - STLT #123

Sermon: GET LOST! : Offroading in the Sacred Wilderness of Now

Closing Hymn: Guide My Feet - STLT #348 5

Benediction: A Most Holy Fragile Footing Postlude:

All Souls Bethlehem Church

An Open and Affirming Congregation

Pastor: Rev. Dr. Boon Lin Ngeo

Ministers: All Members of ASBC

Minister Emeritus: Rev. Bill Nye 

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and be our guest at the gathering following the service!

Interested in “Official” Church Membership?  

Please speak with Council President Raquel Irizarry about our next New Member gathering!  

An All-inclusive, Welcoming Community of Faith

born from the traditions of the:

Disciples of Christ - www.Disciples.org

United Church of Christ - www.UCC.org

Unitarian Universalist Association - www.UUA.org 

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