A Service of Worship for
All Saints/All Souls Sunday
November 1, 2020

We celebrate in the saints not their piety or perfection but the fact that we believe in a God who gets redemptive and holy things done in this world through, of all things, human beings, all of whom are flawed.

My spirituality is most active . . . when I realize God may have gotten something beautiful done through me despite the fact that I am [so very human], and when I am confronted by the mercy of the gospel so much that I cannot hate my enemies, and when I am unable to judge the sin of someone else (which, let’s be honest, I love to do) because my own [stuff] is too much in the way, and when I have to bear witness to another human being’s suffering despite my desire to be left alone, and when I am forgiven by someone even though I don’t deserve it and my forgiver does this because he, too, is trapped by the gospel, and when traumatic things happen in the world and I have nowhere to place them or make sense of them but what I do have is a group of people who gather with me every week, people who will mourn and pray with me . . . when I end up changed by loving someone I’d never choose out of a catalog but who teaches me about God’s love.

Nadia Bolz-Weber
Adult Education - TODAY,  9AM
This Sunday Ben Ball and Jackie Rundstein will lead us in an investigation of four questions that John Dominic Crossan addresses to 21st century Christians. We will hear from Crossan via a clip from “Living the Questions” and then discuss various responses to these questions.
John Dominic Crossan is an Irish-born American theologian and former Roman Catholic priest best
known for his association with the Jesus Seminar, an organization of revisionist biblical scholars, and his controversial writings on the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity.
​
​Zoom link is available on the Online Gatherings page on our website: https://www.covenanthouston.org/covenant-gatherings.html
Full worship service video:
COFFEE TIME Gathering on Zoom
Today, 11AM
We will begin as a large group and discuss the elements of worship we find particularly meaningful and then transition into “rooms" for coffee time. 
​Log in details on the Online Gatherings page. 
Worship notes are included at the bottom of this page and in the Worship Order located at the link below.
With this link you can make a donation to Covenant through PayPal or a credit card. 
Prelude
"O World I Must Now Leave Thee," Johannes Brahms;  Patrick Parker, organ.

​Call to Worship

Opening Sentences
Those we love and lose
are no longer where they were before.
They are now
wherever we are.

​Scripture Lesson: Psalm 107

​Time for Children

Confession
Unison Confession
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid, promised walks never taken.
 
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly.  Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed.
We can be.  Be and be
better.  For they existed.
​
Music
"For All The Saints" William Walsham How, Ralph Vaughan Williams. Led by Patrick Parker, organ and The Covenant Singers. 

​Proclamation

​Prayer
​​​Invitation 
No One is Alone from Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. Created by Ryan McKinny.
www.keepthemusicgoing.com
​​
​Prayer of Dedication 
In the leaving
in the letting go,
let there be this 
to hold onto    
at the last:

the enduring of love,
the persisting of hope,
the remembering of joy,

the offering of gratitude,
the receiving of grace,
the blessing of peace.

​Doxology

​Affirmation of Faith
Hope nonetheless.
Hope despite.
Hope regardless.
Hope still.

Hope where we had ceased to hope.
Hope amid what threatens hope.
Hope with those who feed our hope.
Hope beyond what we had hoped.

Hope that draws us past our limits.
Hope that defies expectations.
Hope that questions what we have known.
Hope that makes a way where there is none.

Hope that takes us past our fear.
Hope that calls us into life.
Hope that holds us beyond death.
Hope that blesses those to come.

Remembering Other Lives Lost in 2020
To reference the sites shown in this video that list those who died click on these links:
From the New York Times: Coronavirus Deaths
From CBS News: Deaths at hands of police

Benediction

Postlude
"O Blest are They whose Troubles are Ended," Johannes Brahms;  Patrick Parker, organ.
Worship Notes

The worship leader is Tonya McKinny.

The Call to Worship is “All Souls Day: In The End” by Carola Moosbach.

The Opening Sentences are adapted from St. John Chrysostom.

The Unison Confession is from “When Great Trees Fall” by Maya Angelou.

“The Lord is my Shepherd” is sung by the Covenant Singers November 5, 2017, directed by Fran Avera. 
Thank you to everyone who sent in photos.

"No One Is Alone" from Into the Woods, video created by Ryan McKinny.

The Prayer of Dedication is “In the Leaving” by Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace.

The Affirmation of Faith is “Rough Translations” by Jan Richardson.


Sunday schedule for today: 
9:00 - Adult Education with Zoom
10:00 - Worship via videos on the Worship Page
11:00 - Transition from worship to coffee time with Zoom

Copyright (c) 2020, Covenant Church