Election Eve 2016

Tyrone and I thank you for the celebration of  our birthdays this past Sunday. It is good to celebrate all month long. It is even better to celebrate with kind and caring people like you!
This coming Sunday is Pledge Sunday. Thank you  in advance for bringing your pledges of time,  talent and treasure with you to worship.
My sermon will be “Philanthropists.” At the heart of my proclamation will be the message that the Bible invites us all to join our Creator as philanthropists, lovers of humanity. I will encourage us to view our pledges to the church as expressions of our commitment to embrace this identity.
Interpreting Leviticus 19: 9-17, which contains the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, I will share these words from Peace Pilgrim – “Religion is to be used as a stepping stone to God, but it must never be used as a tower to hold one aloft from others. We are all cells in the body of humanity. When anyone attempts to isolate another,  they only isolate themselves more.”

Prayers of the Congregation

• Ann Fields and family as they mourn the death of Ann’s sister, Norma
• Ruth Ann Crawford as she recuperates from surgery
• Jessie Guiton as she recuperates from surgery
• Mary Karne for her daughter, Maryla
• Sydney Webster for her daughter, Gigi
• Barry Breaux
• Joan Thatcher (health concerns)
• Gloria Joseph (health concerns)
• Barbara Bowman (health concerns)
• Sandra Dunn
• The people of Oklahoma as they recover from an earthquake
• All who are traveling
• All who are grieving
• The members of our Hunger Task Force as they prepare for our Thanksgiving and Christmas ministries
• Zondra Martin for her family
• Ted and Doris Evans
• Warren and Camille Parker
• Ginny Axtell (health concerns)
• Georgia Upshaw for her family
• Rita Jennings (health concerns)
• Sheila Sims for her mom, Helen (health concerns)
• Thanksgiving for the service of our veterans
• Kay Baxter for Stacey, Jamie, Tess, Abbott and herself
• The Wilkinson family for Gloria Joseph (Sutter Hospital, Vallejo)
• Thanksgiving that Katrina Lau was able to be with us in worship
• Our nation as it remembers Janet Reno, our first female attorney general

Announcements

I hope you will join us for the third Long Range Planning Conversation in Barnett Hall following worship. Lunch will be provided. Having honored our past and considered our present we will begin to discern our future as we share our “God-sized dreams.”
A Prayer For Election Day
God of Every Last One of Us,
Our prayer today is for every voter in the United States of America. May they  be unhindered as they exercise their right to vote. May they be unafraid to vote their deepest beliefs and highest hopes. May they vote with the tomorrows of their children and grandchildren in mind, May they wake up Wednesday morning ready to go back to work on behalf of the dream you have for all your people.
Amen.