Eldad – Hampton Pastoral Charge
of the United Church of Canada.
Rev. Doug Ferris
Music Director: Evan Funnell
March 15, 2026
Services are recorded, contact eldadunitedchurch@gmail.com,
if you wish to receive a link each Sunday to the service.
PRE-SERVICE: WE PREPARE FOR WORSHIP
PRE-SERVICE SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
John 4:23-24
The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit,and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”
The Word of God for the People of God. Amen.
LIGHTING THE CHRIST CANDLE
Thus says the Lord: “Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies. Walk in it and find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16) Today, we light this candle as a reminder to walk the path towards the light of Christ as we worship today. Thanks be to God, Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS & CELEBRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE LAND
We acknowledge this land as the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Nations, governed by the Williams Treaties and Treaty Number Twenty. We give thanks for the stewardship of the first people of this land. May we live in to the agreements of Truth and Reconciliation as e partner together.
WE GATHER FOR WORSHIP
GATHERING IN WORSHIP
One: God of winter cold, of clear sky and frozen river.
ALL: We praise your Holy Name
One: God of spring’s warmth, March’s commanding showers, waking life.
ALL: We praise your Holy Name
One: God of springtime sun, softening earth, sprouting seeds
We praise your Holy Name
One: God of sun’s bright presence, warming pasture, mountain streams
We praise your Holy Name
One: God of root and shoot, promised harvests, yet to bloom
We praise your Holy Name
One: Welcome, all who seek the Spirit o f Christ, discovered in Nature, immanent in Spirit, sensed in our own humanity, testified by the Christ, and promised in the Creator of Life who gives the Spirit’s everlasting gifts of faith, peace, hope, and love to all who ask!
All: Thanks be to God for the bright promise of Spring tide renewal through Christ & Spirit, Amen.
GATHERING IN PRAYER
One: Loving God, you fill our lives with the presence of the Holy Spirit of faith, peace, hope and love. This new life of Joy in Christ is your gift of Good News through the Spirit that enlivens.
ALL: We praise you for the Good News of life in the Spirit, ours as a gift through Jesus Christ. Spirit of Love, Joy, Patience and Kindness, fill us with Joy as we worship as one. IN Christ we pray, Amen.
GATHERING IN SONG: Voices United #642 “Thou Be My Vision”
FAMILY IN WORSHIP: We’re Going on a (Bear Hunt (Quest for Fresh Water, Clean Air, & Healthy Food for all.) Spiritual Journey of enlightenment to see God’s Spirit in all their forms with unblinded eyes, and to find and embrace the Living Spirit of God, present to us within all life, within Living Nature, within our own spirits, and within the spirits of all of God’s people on Earth, both those Christian and non-Christian, an those both known and unknown to us.
FAMILY IN PRAYER:
One: Joyful God, we feel your Spirit moving in our lives. We thank you for the first breaths of Spring, for Earth’s promise of renewal, for The Spirit’s hope in a new vision, for peace in our community, for joy in worship, and for love in meaningful and positive actions.
ALL: We give thanks for celebration, friendship, and blessings. Help us remember, gentle God, that all experience unresolved pain, unspoken hurt, and unquiet memories. Through Christ, we ask forgiveness for the times when we fall short of offering the fullness of forgiveness and the restoration of relationship. May your Spirit of understanding prompt us in love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-restraint. May forgiveness and healing flow within all our relations. In Christ we pray, Amen.
One: We pray for our families and loved one. And today, we remember the needs of those who have nowhere to sleep, no reliable source of food, clean clothing, or healthy shelter. We remember the missional work here at home, in our own communities and at the Back Door Mission in Oshawa.
ALL: As we leave behind the celebrations of the Year of Jubilee; As we step out in faith and in courage on the Road of ministry with Jesus and the disciples and all who have travelled this Emmaus Road before us, we ask for your guidance, Loving God. Help us, we pray. Through the light of Christ, open our eyes to new opportunities for ministry in our daily lives, like noticing the down-hearted, down-trodden, and down-on-their -luck on the side streets of our lives and neighborhoods. Give us fresh eyes to see the blindness made rampant by our materialistic, acquisitive, consumer society. May your Clear-eyed Spirit heal our vision and open our eyes to the needs of the poor, the downtrodden, the disheartened, and the addicted, present all around us. May your holy compassion prompt us to respond with understanding, empathy, and our best efforts. Give to us, we pray, not only the mind of Christ, but also the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as our guide on the Emmaus Road that you have called us to travel in the coming days, months, and years in ministry. In Christ’s all-loving embrace, we pray, Amen.
WORDS OF ASSURANCE:
FAMILY IN SONG: Voices United #372 “Thou I May Speak”
MINISTRY OF THE WORD
PRAYER OF ENLIGHTENMENT:
Mark 8: 22-26 [Link to Scriptures]
John 9: 1-40
One: The Word of God for the people of God.
ALL: Thanks be to God for the Word.
RESPONDING TO THE WORD IN PRAYER:
Words of Assurance:
THE CHURCH RESPONDS TO THE WORD
THANKSGIVING AND DEDICATION: Offertory
We bring our Gifts of Service and Support before God and for the Work of the Church.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE & THE LORD’S PRAYER:
One: Today, we have considered our calling together as one body in Christ. We have grasped the heart of what it means to follow Christ in our age. This is not the calling of each of us individually. It is not the calling our pastoral charge, or our denomination, not the protestant church, or the Church universal and triumphant. This is the calling to Christ, given to all, and revealed to all throughout the scriptures. Let us join our hearts in prayer for the church, the world, and all who are in need, trusting in the One who neither slumbers nor sleeps, whose steadfast love endures forever. Let Us Pray:
God of the journey, from the very beginning, you have called your people to step out in faith. You called Abram and Sarai to leave behind the known, and to walk a road toward an unknown promise.
ALL: You call us still. Give your church courage to walk in faith, to speak truth in love, and to embody your grace in a world longing for hope. Grant us courage to lift our eyes to the mountains from whence our help comes. When we are tempted to cling to comfortable routines, traditional patterns and scripted responses, remind us that you go before us and behind us. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
One: God of all people, God of all nations, and God of all faiths, we lift before you those who travel uncertain and dangerous paths.
ALL: Refugees seeking safety, families displaced by flood or fire, communities living under the shadow of poverty, criminal activity, violence, and war. We remember especially places in our region, province, country and beyond where violence has become daily realty … (pause for extemporaneous individual prayer)
One: Guard their steps, O God. Also, we pray for those who feel trapped in despair, those weighed down by illness, grief, or loneliness. we remember those whose bodies are in pain, whose minds are troubled, whose spirits are weary. We remember and name them now, aloud or in the silence of our hearts…
(PAUSE)
ALL: Faithful One, help us to live as people of that love—to care for creation as a sacred trust, to welcome the stranger as we would welcome you, to work for reconciliation among all peoples. May our lives point to the light of Christ, so that the world may believe and be renewed.
One: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer, and, as we join together in an alternative translation of the Prayer that Jesus taught us, a Celtic Version of “The Lord’s Prayer,” (John Philip Newell). May we remember the One Spirit who brings life to our prayers may communicate the same thinking in different words. Let us pray:
Holy One beyond all names —Eternal Wellspring: may Love rise again in us today
With food for every table, Shelter for every family, And reverence for every life.
Forgive us our failings in love, And free us from all falseness
That the light of our souls may shine, And the strength of our spirits endure;
For earth and all its people this day, tonight, and forever. Amen.
RESPONDING TO THE WORD IN THE UNITED CHURCH’S EXPRESSION OF FAITH, “A SONG OF FAITH”:
With Christians throughout time, we affirm our belief in the Old and New Testaments as primary standards of Christian faith and life. The United Church of Canada also affirms these timeless truths as expressed for our day in the poetic phrases of “A Song of Faith.”
ALL: Scripture is our Song for the Journey, the living word passed on from generation to generation to guide and inspire, that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place, from the human experiences and cultural assumptions of another era. God call us to be doers of the word, and not hearers only. The Spirit breathes revelatory power into scripture, bestowing upon it a unique and normative place in the life of the community. The Spirit judges us critically when we abuse scripture by interpreting it narrow-mindedly, using it as a tool of oppression exclusion, or hatred. The wholeness of scripture testifies to the oneness and faithfulness of God, the Holy Mystery that is Wholly Love.
RENEWED, COMMISSIONED AND SENT FORTH INTO THE MINISTRY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
BENEDICTION & BLESSING
Hampton United Church 