Worship, Sun 13 Sept: 'Mercy and Forgiveness'

 Hello and welcome to worship with Upper Clyde Parish – it’s good to meet together and to praise the One who calls us to gather; the One who loves us, and who calls us to be his merciful, forgiving people. If you're joining with us for the first time, a warm welcome.

Last time in worship, in Matthew’s gospel, we were thinking about Jesus’ call to live in peace with one another – to be a community of reconciliation. 

And why do so? Apart from Jesus asking this of us, as the great reformer John Calvin observed:
the godly community is a harmonious community... So, to live in harmony, to live at peace with one another, is a mark of where we’re at within both our individual and communal faith journeys.
This week, we’re continuing a little further along that path, as we hear Peter ask Jesus about forgiveness, and listen to a story Jesus tells of mercy in the face of quite an enormous obstacle.
So, in a nutshell, mercy and forgiveness are our themes today in worship.

Before we move more fully into our worship time there’s several church notices:

First, an update on the church building and on opening for worship:
we now have our fully comprehensive electricians report.and, unfortunately, we’ve hit a slight snag -
there’s a wee bit of work that needs to be done before we’re allowed to open the building.
I’ll find out more on Monday when I speak with the electrician and I'll be seeing just how long he thinks it will take to do this work, and of course, the question I don’t want to ask...just how much it will be.
Until that work is done, we will not be opening for the next wee while.
So, worship options continue to be – to meet online through our youtube channel and for those folk who can’t access the internet, to tune into the morning acts of worship on the radio.
And, I’ll let you know when we can reopen the building!
We will get there, so thanks for your patience.

Meantime, we are still a community, and as part of our calling to love God and our neighbour, over September, we’re once again be supporting the work of the Clydesdale foodbank –
so, a wee reminder that if you’d like to make a donation of cheque or direct debit online, the contact details can be accessed on this FOODBANK LINK
Also, a little later on, in October, as we think about Harvest, I’d ask you to consider supporting the foodbank as our charity of choice this year. I ask this because I’ve been doing an increased number of foodbank referrals due to covid and feel that this year, we might concentrate our efforts a little more locally.

And finally:
As usual, for those of you with all-age households, don’t forget you can access age-appropriate worship resources to make worship more user-friendly for our younger friends. You can find the ALL-AGE LINK here..
Should you wish to dive a little deeper into today’s reading from the gospel you can access material  on this BIBLE STUDY LINK. 

With all that said, I hope that this time of worship will recharge your spiritual batteries, and re-energise you to show God's love at home, and wherever you may be this week. 
And here's the WORSHIP SERVICE LINK.