You can view or download the full weekly bulletin below.
Sunday, September 21, 2025 -- 10:30am Worship Service
Welcome to Maxwell Street! We hope you will consider wearing a nametag so that we might get to know one another better. They can be found in the lobbies outside the sanctuary. You can find more helpful information inside this bulletin.
Greeting & Announcements
Recognition of Eagle Scout Leah Collins
Welcoming New Members
Prelude - Awake the Trumpets Lofty Sound, G. F. Handel
Call to Worship
We gather here in your presence, God,
in our need, and bringing with us the needs of the world.
We come to you, for you come to us in Jesus,
And you know by experience what human life is like.
We come with our faith and with our doubts;
we come with our hopes and with our fears.
We come as we are because you invite us to come;
And you have promised never to turn us away.
+ Hymn 664 - Morning Has Broken
+ Call to Confession
+ A Prayer of Confession
Eternal God, too often we have lived for ourselves, and apart from you, when we want to live for your sake and abide in your presence. We have turned from our neighbors, tuned out the pain of the world, and passed by so many in need of what we have to offer. In your great mercy forgive us and free us from selfishness. Help us follow you more closely and love you more fully. We ask this in the name of through Jesus Christ your son. Hear now our silent prayers of confession.
• Assurance of Pardon
• Response to Forgiveness: Hymn 447 - We Are Forgiven
We are forgiven. We are forgiven.
Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. (sing 2x)
Passing of the Peace
Children’s Message
Prayer for Openness
Holy and gracious God, may your Holy Spirit give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we listen for your word to us. Amen.
Scripture Reading - 1 Timothy 2.1, NT pg. 203
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all —this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth; I am not lying), a teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth.
This is the written testimony to the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Anthem - Rejoice!, Johnie Dean
Commissioned by the City of Lexington in celebration of the city’s 250th Anniversary
Scripture Reading - Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, OT Pg 708
My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick.
Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from far and wide in the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”)
“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Sermon - Rev. Kathy Riley
Statement of Faith - Brief Statement of Faith, lines 27-51
We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. 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. But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator. Ignoring God’s commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God’s condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation. In everlasting love, the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people to bless all families of the earth. Hearing their cry, God delivered the children of Israel from the house of bondage. Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still.
+ HYMN 346 - For the Healing of the Nations
Prayers of the People & THE LORD’s PRAYER
Offering
• INVITATION
• Offertory - Meditation, Raymond Haan
• Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessing flow Praise Christ the Word in flesh born low;
Praise Holy Spirit evermore; One God, Triune, whom we adore. Amen.
• Prayer of Dedication
+ HYMN 769 - For Everyone Born
Charge & Benediction
Benediction Response - Hymn 539, We Will Go Out with Joy
We will go out with joy in the Spirit; we will go out with God.
All: We will go out with joy in the Spirit; we will go out with God.
Refrain: Alleluia! We will go out with joy. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Now anyone who’s born of the Spirit, sing a new song of joy.
Now anyone who’s born of the Spirit, sing a new song of joy. (Refrain)
Postlude - Entrata Festiva, David Lasky
+ Indicates that the congregation is invited to stand in body and/or spirit.
Greeting & Announcements
Recognition of Eagle Scout Leah Collins
Welcoming New Members
Prelude - Awake the Trumpets Lofty Sound, G. F. Handel
Call to Worship
We gather here in your presence, God,
in our need, and bringing with us the needs of the world.
We come to you, for you come to us in Jesus,
And you know by experience what human life is like.
We come with our faith and with our doubts;
we come with our hopes and with our fears.
We come as we are because you invite us to come;
And you have promised never to turn us away.
+ Hymn 664 - Morning Has Broken
+ Call to Confession
+ A Prayer of Confession
Eternal God, too often we have lived for ourselves, and apart from you, when we want to live for your sake and abide in your presence. We have turned from our neighbors, tuned out the pain of the world, and passed by so many in need of what we have to offer. In your great mercy forgive us and free us from selfishness. Help us follow you more closely and love you more fully. We ask this in the name of through Jesus Christ your son. Hear now our silent prayers of confession.
• Assurance of Pardon
• Response to Forgiveness: Hymn 447 - We Are Forgiven
We are forgiven. We are forgiven.
Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. (sing 2x)
Passing of the Peace
Children’s Message
Prayer for Openness
Holy and gracious God, may your Holy Spirit give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we listen for your word to us. Amen.
Scripture Reading - 1 Timothy 2.1, NT pg. 203
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all —this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth; I am not lying), a teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth.
This is the written testimony to the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Anthem - Rejoice!, Johnie Dean
Commissioned by the City of Lexington in celebration of the city’s 250th Anniversary
Scripture Reading - Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, OT Pg 708
My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick.
Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from far and wide in the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”)
“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Sermon - Rev. Kathy Riley
Statement of Faith - Brief Statement of Faith, lines 27-51
We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. 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. But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator. Ignoring God’s commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God’s condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation. In everlasting love, the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people to bless all families of the earth. Hearing their cry, God delivered the children of Israel from the house of bondage. Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still.
+ HYMN 346 - For the Healing of the Nations
Prayers of the People & THE LORD’s PRAYER
Offering
• INVITATION
• Offertory - Meditation, Raymond Haan
• Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessing flow Praise Christ the Word in flesh born low;
Praise Holy Spirit evermore; One God, Triune, whom we adore. Amen.
• Prayer of Dedication
+ HYMN 769 - For Everyone Born
Charge & Benediction
Benediction Response - Hymn 539, We Will Go Out with Joy
We will go out with joy in the Spirit; we will go out with God.
All: We will go out with joy in the Spirit; we will go out with God.
Refrain: Alleluia! We will go out with joy. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Now anyone who’s born of the Spirit, sing a new song of joy.
Now anyone who’s born of the Spirit, sing a new song of joy. (Refrain)
Postlude - Entrata Festiva, David Lasky
+ Indicates that the congregation is invited to stand in body and/or spirit.