We hosted a Pre-Pride service of Blessing and Communion on Sunday 18th September at 3pm at the Loft in the heart of the Gay Village. If you missed it, you can catch up here:
Welcome (Gary)
Song – This is Me
Question for Sharing – What is your favourite Pride memory or story?
Julia’s Story (Southside BID)
Song – Love is Love
Saints & Weirdos (Naomi)
Blessings for Brum Pride (Nessa, Adam, Danielle)
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are your gay, lesbian, and bisexual children.
Blessed are your trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming children.
Blessed are your children who we are all learning to name, describe, and know.
Sung Response: I’m beautiful in my way / ‘Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who have come out.
Blessed are those who cannot.
Blessed are those who are still finding their way.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who feel boxed in.
Blessed are those who feel shackled by tradition.
Blessed are those who are suffocated by the roars of expectation.
Sung Response: I’m beautiful in my way / ‘Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who struggle with self-harm and self-hatred.
Blessed are those who strive to accept the person they see in the mirror.
Blessed are those who strain each day just to survive.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who persist.
Blessed are those who persevere.
Blessed are those who prove to the world each day that diversity is divine.
Sung Response: I’m beautiful in my way / ‘Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are the chosen families who have taken in the lost and forgotten.
Blessed are the friends and family who have helped rewrite the stories of lives.
Blessed are the allies who have loved those unable to love themselves.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those whose ancestral queer footsteps we walk in.
Blessed are those who marched and marched and marched before us.
Blessed are those who have dared to dream and dared to demand justice.
I’m beautiful in my way / ‘Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Every single one of them.
And blessed are we as we
Tirelessly,
Courageously,
Imaginatively,
Co-create with you
A world where all people know and feel and have love.
All sexualities.
All genders.
All gender expressions.
All families.
All bodies.
Holy One, guide us toward your strange, boundless, undefinable love. And when we are met with the sneers, side-eye, and shame of the world, remind us who walks this journey with us.
You: the One who has shattered every norm, every box, every shackle that holds us down and calls us to do the same. Amen. (By Sam Lundquist)
Ben’s Story (Pride Joy)
Introducing Communion – All are Welcome (Danielle)
Song – Born this Way
Communion (Danielle)
God calls us, community of saints,
beloveds of God,
we are invited to come and gather at the table of love and liberation,
to feast on the dreams of God,
to be nourished by but a taste of what God desires to do among us.
God calls us from institutional halls of power,
From shelters and the streets;
God calls us from classrooms and pulpits,
Gay bars and prison cells.
God calls us as we are, from wherever we are,
to come and be in solidarity with Christ,
who lives and loves on the margins.
God whispers “come”
and live abundantly,
turning from all that claims blessings
flow from money, power, or control.
Come, and
love relentlessly;
following Christ on paths of uncertainty,
taking risks for one another,
calling down unjust power from its throne
and lifting up the lowly,
the impoverished,
the burdened.
To answer the call of Christ is to find ourselves
no matter our social location,
choosing to align ourselves with the causes
of the marginalized, the oppressed,
the outcast, and the isolated,
with the faith that
together,
we might enflesh new possibilities
of healing,
of connection,
of freedom from all that destroys.
When these are the desires of our hearts,
we open ourselves to God.
Blessed are those, Jesus said, who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
And so let us come to the table,
expectant,
eager,
open
to tasting the rich blessings of heaven
born from unexpected places, and people, and experiences.
In this meal,
we remember the life, death, and resurrection of
the One who still takes on flesh among us today.
On the night he would be arrested,
Jesus gathered his friends and companions.
In the midst of a tense and dangerous time,
they found each other at table,
connecting over the story of God-enfleshed among them.
And as they did so, Jesus took bread, gave thanks to God, broke the bread and shared it with his disciples saying,
“Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
When the supper was over, he also took the cup, gave thanks to God, and shared it with his disciples, saying,
“Drink from this, all of you; this is the cup of the new covenant. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
And so we pray,
Come Holy Spirit,
Breath of God,
Renewer of life,
settle on these gifts and all who gather here,
that we might be transformed in our remembrance
of your radical love,
your eternal embrace,
and your grace that makes all things news.
For the sake of our shared lives,
the life of this land on which we live,
and the lives of those yet to come,
nourish us and renew our hope
that soon Christ may rise again among us.
(– Rev. Anna Blaedel – Enfleshed.com)
Song – You Say
What’s Coming Up
Song – I’m Gonna Walk It With You
Blessing (Gary) – May we live fully, love wastefully and have the courage to be all that God has created us to be.
