Africa 360
Worship Service Planning
Note: Please feel free to use/adapt anything you see here for your congregations’ use. Use as little or as much as fits in your style of worship. Email with any questions, or to submit your church’s liturgy to be included in this planning guide – this is living document!
Call to Worship:
Leader: It is time to worship!
People: So we thank God for providing in ways more than we can ask or imagine.
Leader: It is time to worship!
People: So we praise God for the privilege of gathering with a song in our hearts.
Leader: It is time to worship!
People: So we seek to honor God through our responses and our gifts today.
Leader: Let us worship God!
OR
Leader: Thank you God for providing for us in ways we cannot ask or imagine.
People: We are grateful for your blessings.
Leader: Thank you God for taking care of us and our loved ones with gifts that surprise and delight us.
People: We are grateful for your blessings.
Leader: God because of our gratitude, we feel called to respond to others.
People: We are grateful to have resources that we can share with others.
Leader: God hear our prayers that we will give from the goodness that has been given to us.
People: We are grateful to be a blessing to others.
OR
Leader: What good is it if we say we love all people, but give special treatment to a few?
People: God calls us to love others as deeply as we love ourselves, with no strings attached.
Leader: What good is it if we say we want God to show mercy towards us, but are quick to judge or dismiss others?
People: God calls us to be in relationship with our sisters and brothers, to let mercy triumph over judgment.
Leader: What good is it if we say we trust God in every moment, but live guided by our fears?
People: We will speak and act as those who trust God to come and live in our fearful hearts.
Unison prayer:
Eternal God, we are amazed by how much you continue to provide. You have cared for us deeply, loved us unconditionally. We confess that we have not trusted your abundance when our faith is challenged. However, you have given us a space to strike a blow against fear, disease and poverty, and to follow your generous example through our actions. Help us move beyond our tendency to see only the headlines of doom and gloom and risk extravagant care for others that the world might be healed, that the world might be saved. Amen.
OR
“A Statement of Faith of the United Church of Canada” UMH 883
Or can be found online at
OR
UMH 597: For the Spirit of Truth
Offertory Prayer/Prayer of Dedication:
Let us be slow in our yearning to hang on to our blessings, and quick to share them with the hungry, the lonely, the forgotten and the hurting of our world, that our gifts might become a kind of first fruits for those in need. This we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Hymns:
There is a Balm in Gilead #375
Open My Eyes, that I May See #454
Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore #344
Send Me, Lord #497
Try singing in a few African languages:
Thank You, Jesus (Tino Tenda, Jesu) #2081
We Are Marching (Siyahamba) #2235b
Jesus, We Are Here (Jesu, TawaPano) #2273