March is Women's History Month.
And Herstory is being made every day.

National Council of Churches USA

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Presbyterian Church USA worship service celebrating women.

Call to Worship

(May be read by one person or read responsively)

Come, let us celebrate the unique gifts that God has given to each woman, each man, every girl and boy.

Let us together, women and men, young and old, give thanks for the call of Christ to follow him into a broken world to lead the church into making all things new.

Let us sing praises to our God that we can claim the amazing gifts of the Spirit with which we have been equipped for service and leadership—gifts of peacemaking, compassion, perseverance, unity and love—and use them for the sake of all God's children.

Let us worship God with great joy, gratitude and expectation!

Prayer of Confession
Loving and merciful God, you created each of us in your own image to live in community. You graced us generously with the gifts of apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers. You equipped all of us, women and men alike, for the work of ministry. Yet too often we tarnish your image, waste our gifts, refuse to accept your call to service and fail to live at peace with our neighbors. O, God, in the name of Christ, help us to turn to you to shape us as you intended when you created us. Fill us with your Spirit and strengthen us to continue our journey and complete the task of shaping the Christian community as one people of God. We trust that all things are possible through you. In the name of Christ. Amen.

 

Litany of Thanksgiving
Leader: O God, for your church, which throughout the ages has called women to serve in this world that you love,
People: we thank you.
Leader: For Mary of Bethany, who showed us how to listen and learn,
People: we thank you.
Leader: For Martha, who served others with loving care,
People: we thank you.
Leader: For Priscilla and Lydia and other courageous leaders of the early church,
People: we give you praise.
Leader: For women like Katharine Bennett and Margaret Hodge, who led the movement for full equality among women in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.,
People: we thank you.
Leader: For the life and creative leadership of Sarah E. Dickson, the first woman ordained as an elder in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.,
People: we thank you.
Leader: For the ministry of women elders who joyfully accepted their new responsibilities with diligence,
People: we thank you and we celebrate their lives and their commitment to the ministry of the whole church.
All: Together, may we move forward with men and women as fully equal partners in the ministry of Christ to which you call us all. Amen.

Statement of Faith
Excerpted from "A Brief Statement of Faith," The Book of Confessions, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God's image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community ....We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life.

The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith, sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all believers in the one body of Christ, the Church.

The same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture, engages us through the Word proclaimed, claims us in the waters of baptism, feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and calls women and men to all ministries of the Church.

Suggested Scripture Readings

Genesis 1:27
Ephesians 4:7, 11-12
Galatians 3:26-29
Acts 2:17-18

Suggested Hymns

#285 "God, You Spin the Whirling Planets"
#322 "Spirit of the Living God"
#343 "Called as Partners in Christ's Service"
#432 "Canto de Esperanza" ("Song of Hope")
#514 "Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ"

All hymns are from The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville.: Westminster John Knox, 1990)

Charge and Benediction
Go out to tell the world that our God is faithful—like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home. Go out to celebrate with joy the amazing gifts that this faithful God has given each one of us, women and men alike. Go out to use those gifts in ministry to the church and to the world.

May the God of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, the God who is the Christ, the son of Mary, and God the Holy Spirit, who hovers over us like a hen who gathers her chicks beneath her wings, go with you now and forever. Amen.

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