The service on July 12th saw twenty-three people join Julia for worship. We heard the scripture from Acts 2:43-47 when the early believers gathered and shared everything and shared everything while praising God. As this was the Sunday we shared our last communion service with Julia, she entitled her message “Come to the Table.” We heard that everyone has a chance to share at the table. Sitting at any meal is the most common ritual of our lives. At the communion table Christ is the host, and all are welcome and there are no rules in The United Church of Canada to come to the table. We were asked to answer the question in small groups “When have you shared around the table in your life?” Following the service those of us who shared the communion table were able to have our picture taken with Julia on our individual cell phones.
On National Ice Cream Day, July 19th, twenty-five people joined Julia for her last Sunday service at St. Andrew’s United. (The service itself was on the screen so there were no paper bulletins.) This was a service of singing many of Julia’s favourite hymns and she told us why these hymns were some of her favourites. She also informed us that we remember songs better than sermons and that music is always important even when we may not have singing voices. We heard the scriptures from Ephesians 5:15-20 where we heard we “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” and also from Colossians 3:15-17 where we also heard “as with gratitude in our hearts we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” For the centering chorus following the lighting of the Christ candle, the offertory, and the sung benediction we sang the same psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs as we have for the last few services.
The following are the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs we sang: 291 VU – All Things Bright and Beautiful; 28 MV – God of the Bible (Fresh as the Morning); 282 VU – Long before the Night; 27 MV – Creator God You Gave Us Love; 684 VU – Make Me a Chan-nel of Your Peace; 30 TLUS* – We Are a Rainbow; 178 MV – Three Things I Promise; and 509 VU – I, the Lord of Sea and Sky (Here I Am, Lord). We were each given an index card at the beginning of the service and part way through the service we were asked to put our name and SA (for St. Andrew’s) at the top of the card and list some of our fa-vourite hymns from Voices United and More Voices. These cards were then given to Julia who will leave them for Marco so he can see what music St. Andrew’s is familiar with. (*In the above list of hymns sung the abbreviation TLUS stands for the new United
Church hymn book entitled Then Let Us Sing.)
Please remember that this Sunday’s service will be a joint service held at Okotoks
United for Julia’s last Sunday service for Okotoks-DeWinton Pastoral Charge.
– P. Marie Wedderburn