Strafford will be celebrating Independence Day this weekend, the birthday of our nation.  Birthdays are good times to reflect on our lives and this Sunday the scripture passages are conducive to reflecting on the role Christ or the Holy Spirit calls the church to play in a nation or the world, and what that means to us in our nation and world today.

We will read about Jesus being rejected in his home town of Nazareth and then sending his disciples out to spread the movement to make the world more like God’s loving realm of mercy, justice and peace.  We will consider what the costs of that discipleship can be, as well as the benefits. (Matthew 6:1-16)

The responsive Call to Worship will be from Psalms 120 and 127.  During the children’s time we will look at how the ethics of Ezekiel 33:1-11 apply to a game of Blind Man’s Buff.

We will sing “The Voice of God Is Calling,” “God Send Us Wills Whose Aim ‘Twill Be” and a new hymn, “Someone Needs to Show the Way” sung to the tune of “Watchman, Tell Us of the Night.”

The choir will sing under Annemieke McLane’s direction two songs from the Iona/John Bell collection, “Be Still and Know” and “Stand Firm” and a beautiful Amidon arrangement of “Psalm 126.”