There are two ways to live your life: as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle.  ~ Albert Einstein

WELCOME – Rev. Larry Reimer
 
PRELUDE – Phillip Herr-Klepacki
 
CALL TO WORSHIP – “Imperatives” by Kathleen Norris
 
      Look at the birds, consider the lilies
      Drink ye all of it, ask, seek, knock
      Enter by the narrow gate
      Do not be anxious, judge not
      Go: be it done for you
      Do not be afraid
      Woman, arise; man, I say, arise
      Stretch out your hand
      Stand up, be still, rise
      Let us be going
      Love, forgive, remember me.
 
HYMN- “Morning Has Broken” – #48 in the gray songbook
Cello – Eric Nelson

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
 
READING – Taylor Williams
“i thank You God for this most amazing day” by e.e. cummings
 
i thank You God for this most amazing
day: for leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
 
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
 
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
 
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
 
Repeat verse 3 of Morning Has Broken (seated)
 
Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning
          Born of the one light! Eden saw play!
          Praise with elation, Praise every morning,
          God’s re-creation, Of the new day!
 
TIME WITH THE CHILDREN – Sandy Reimer
“The Little Engine that Could”

PRAYER AND BIRTHDAYS
 
INTERLUDE and RECEIVING OUR MORNING OFFERING
 
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE – Andy Bachmann
 
RESPONSE – # 96 in the songbook. “In the Lord I’ll Be Ever Thankful”
Philip will play the song once, and then we will sing it twice.
 
In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful, In the Lord I will rejoice!
Look to God, do not be afraid; lift up your voices, the Lord is near.
Lift up your voices, the Lord is near.
 
SERMON – “The Little Engine that Could – Or Couldn’t” – Larry Reimer
 
          READING – “The Little Blue Engine” from Where the Sidewalk Ends
               by Shel Silverstein, read by Sandy Reimer
 
          SCRIPTURE – Matthew 25:1-13
 
          SPECIAL MUSIC – “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning”
          UCG Choir, Philip Herr-Klepacky directing
          Drummers: Leigh Baker, Anne Bonneville, Karol Halter, and Shelby                    Havens

REPRISE – “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” – congregation sings
         
          Keep your lamps trimmed and burning, (3 times)
          The time is drawing nigh.
 
                   Children don’t get weary. (3 times)
                    The light is drawing nigh.
 
           Keep your lamps trimmed and burning. (3x) 
           The time is drawing nigh.
 
 BENEDICTION
   We go now into the world in peace: to be of good courage;
   To hold fast to the good; to return to no one evil for evil;
   To strengthen the fainthearted; to support the weak;
   And to love and serve what is Holy,
   Filled with a powerful Spirit.   Amen. 
 
“ALLELUIA”
 
P0STLUDE