october 19, 2025

asbcsite
Oct 19
4 min read

Preacher: Rev. Dr. Bill Nye

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

CLICK HERE FOR HYMNS (or scroll to the bottom)

Prelude: Richard Harper

Chalice Lighting:

We are not alone. We are this flame, ancient as the stars, new as the vulnerable spark.We are not alone.

We are here. We are here for ourselves. We are here for each other. And…We are not alone.

Opening Hymn: God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale NCH 32

Welcome & Announcement

Call to Worship:

When the way is difficult and dangerous,

let us still choose what is good and just.

When evil comes to break us down and break us apart,

let us still choose to carry on with each other.

When power from on high strikes fear in our hearts,

let us still choose the courage to persist.

For we know that the love and power of God, which abides in us, will not be overcome.

Prayer of Invocation:

First Sacred Reading: 1 Kings 19: 1-12

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ²Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ³Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.⁴But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”⁵Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” ⁶He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. ⁹At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁰He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”¹¹He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, ¹²and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

Passing of the Peace

Sharing of Our Joys & Concerns

Prayers of the People/Pastoral Prayer

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

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

Second Sacred Reading (from a FaceBook posting by Jordon Harrell). Read responsively:

Leader: Genocide is biblical.

Men: Loving your enemies is biblical.