This is part of the worship series,
"Rooted and Established in Love”
Introduction
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4—World Communion Sunday
Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8—All Saints /Reformation Sunday
Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12—Christ the King Sunday
Week One: The Living Tree
Scripture: Genesis 2:4–25
Faith Practice: Formation
Reflection: What does it mean that God breathed life into humanity and formed us? What does it mean to grow in the Lord, to be alive in God? How does that connect with our call to care for creation and to be creative, growing, and living children of God?
Gathering
Call to Worship
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
—Psalm 8 NRSVUE
[Consider a dramatic reading of Psalm 8 involving intergenerational members of the congregation.]
Call to Confession
[Consider adapting paragraph 10 of Our World Belongs to God.]
Prayer of Confession
Creator God, we thank you for the beauty of your creation and for giving us the privilege of caring for it. We turn to you in prayer as the Maker, Creator, Author of all, acknowledging not only your sovereignty and lordship over all, but also praising you for your creativity, your providence, and your ongoing sustaining work in the creation.
God, you saw the mountain ranges, outlining the peaks and the valleys and dusting them with snow, before they came into existence. You imagined the bright colors of the fish in the ocean before the waters teemed with life. You knew the composition of a single human cell, the intricacies and delicate balance of our bodies before they were formed from the dust.
You knew each and every one of us long before we were conceived. You knew our thoughts and our actions, and you had a vision for how our lives would flourish and grow. We praise you as the one who is Lord over the big and the small, the vast expanses and the miniscule particles, the big picture and the daily details.
We confess that so often we lose sight of the myriad ways you created and continue to create: through scientific advancement, through minds enabled to think and reason, through ways to cultivate farmland to feed both human and animal, through the gifted minds and hands of those who have the ability to teach young and old alike. For the times we forget that your hand is at work in all these things, continuing your good work of creating, forgive us, Lord.
For the times we waste, destroy, or apathetically let go, we ask for forgiveness. You created all things and then pronounced them good. You created us from the dust, yet in your own image—your image that is beautiful and perfect and good. You desire flourishing for creation and for all humankind—but how often we fail, underestimating your plans. Instead of flourishing, we hide, we feel unworthy, we do not feel equipped enough or loved enough to do what you are calling us to do. Forgive us, Creator God.
We pray that in your creation and in our lives as those made in your image we would flourish and grow in the grace and knowledge of you, our Lord and Savior. May your Holy Spirit fill us so that we might serve you with our whole heart, mind and strength. May we with all creation submit to you as Lord of all.
—Kathryn Roelofs © 2025 ReformedWorship.org, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Song
“Have Thine Own Way, Lord!” Pollard
Assurance of Pardon
Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah, who bore you,
for he was but one when I called him,
but I blessed him and made him many.
For the Lord will comfort Zion;
he will comfort all her waste places
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the voice of song.
—Isaiah 51:1–3 NRSVUE
Word
Scripture
Genesis 2:4–25
Message
The Living Tree
Response
Choral Anthem
“Grow Me, Lord” Schram
Children’s Message
[One of our members grew an avocado pit (tinyurl.com/8crc6dac) and brought pits for kids to grow during the series so they could watch the avocado put down roots.]
Sending
Revised Common Lectionary
Year B: Season after Pentecost—Proper 22 (27)
