So, you might not have realised it, but it has been an eventful summer behind the scenes at Inclusive Gathering Birmingham. God is at work and change is afoot. We can’t wait to tell you more about it this Sunday and to invite you to be part of the joy and adventure of this next season at IGB.
Join us at the Edgbaston Quaker Meeting House at Five Ways at 3pm OR on Facebook Live at 3pm. If you fancy sticking around and having a meal with us, ordering pizza for after the service!
If you are joining us online (or just like to know what to expect) you can find this Sunday’s running order below.
Welcome– Tash
Songs – Hallelujah & Build My Life (Gary & Adam)
Question for Sharing – Ben W
As part of our regular worship gathering we have what we call our ‘question for sharing’ to give people a moment to connect with each other. So we’re going to ask you all a question, and as we share our answer you can chat with the people around you or also share your answers in the comments on Facebook Live: What is your favourite way to celebrate when something good happens?
Saints & Weirdos Story (from Church history) – Joel
Scripture Reading: Mark 5: 25-34 – Nettes
25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.
30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”
31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Poem: Jesus at the Gay Bar (by Jay Hulme) – Read by Gary
He’s here in the midst of it –
right at the centre of the dance floor,
robes hitched up to His knees
to make it easy to spin.
At some point in the evening
a boy will touch the hem of His robe
and beg to be healed, beg to be
anything other than this’
And He will reach His arm out,
sweat-damp, weary from dance.
He’ll cup this boy’s face in His hand
and say,
my beautiful child
there is nothing in this heart of yours
that ever needs to be healed.
Story & Reflection – New Adventures for IGB (Danielle)
Song: Hey Jesus (Mark)
Story – David S
Short Communion Intro & Prayer activity (Danielle) –
Song – The Welcome (David Benjamin Blower )
Song – Come to the Table (Mark)
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 – Be Thou My Vision (Gary & Adam)
Closing Announcements – Tash & Danielle
Re-Set & Pizza Feast!
