Worship on Mission Awareness Sunday
10:00 am April 27, 2025
Minister: The Rev. Brad Childs Music Director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalist: Loretta Lee Welcoming Elder: Gina Kottke
Children’s time presenter: Vivian Houg Reader: Don Milligan
We gather to worship God
Music Prelude
Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you
P: and also with you.
Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Preparation for worship
Call to worship:
L: Peace be with you, as Jesus speaks to our hearts today.
P: We gather to listen to His voice, seeking His presence among us.
L: On this Mission Awareness Sunday, let us open our hearts to His call.
P: With ears ready to hear and hearts open to serve, we come to worship.
Opening praise: This is amazing grace
Prayers of repentance and reconciliation
God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
we rejoice in this new day you have made.
We praise you for the abundant life with which you bless us,
and for all the beauty surrounding us as spring takes hold again.
We praise you for your Son, Jesus,
and the power of new life promised in his resurrection.
We praise you for your Spirit at work in human history,
to restore and redeem our hope with that power of new life.
God of steadfast love, we worship you with the Spirit and the Son, and claim your gift of new life, even in the face of any doubt or danger within the world you love.
All praise, honour and glory be yours, O God, now and evermore. Amen.
O God of might and mercy, in raising Jesus from the dead, you showed us your power to defeat all that brings fear and sorrow to our lives.
In his resurrection, Jesus promised to be with us everywhere and always.
Yet we confess we are sometimes uncertain about your promises.
We doubt the promise of resurrection for our own lives.
Upheaval and anxiety eat away at our peace.
Forgive us when we struggle to trust your goodness and your steadfast love for us.
Response: Glory, glory hallelujah
Assurance of God’s love
Hear and believe the good news of the Gospel.
In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and set free from sin and sorrow.
In Jesus Christ, God offers us the gift of peace.
May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ fill your hearts this day.
Mission Awareness Presentation: Andrea Gartrell
See accompanying slides referred to in the following commentary. Also available at the following location. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_5IMoQnJDvgVPDrBGVEZwO1imIEOO8Hn
My name is Andrea Gartrell and I am a member of the Worship Committee. This year we are celebrating 150 years of the Presbyterian Church in Canada and as part of that celebration, every month or so, we will highlight how Dayspring has participated in bringing God’s love to all of his creation, both locally and globally.
Today is Mission Awareness Sunday. Missions and Outreach projects work with local partners around the world to address the root causes of poverty and create new futures of hope and opportunity. Inspired by God’s promise of abundant life, mission project members envision and seek to create a sustainable, compassionate and just world. To help transform communities by promoting justice, peace and the integrity of creation.
SLIDE 1
As part of that call to care for God’s people, I would like to share some memories of Dayspring’s Mission and Outreach history.
SLIDE 2
Back in 1983, we financially supported a sheep farming project for people migrating from Mexico to Guatemala due to economic and social conflict.
SLIDE 3
Later, in 2003, a group from Dayspring partnered with an agency and travelled to El Salvador to help local people with a house-building project.
SLIDE 4
In 2014 and then again in 2017, our partnership with Live Different had us travelling to Mexico for another house-building project.
SLIDE 5
In these slides, you can see how we worked side by side and heart to heart supporting God’s people in their communities,
SLIDE 6
according to their need and regardless of faith.
We listen for the voice of God
Song: Jesus, we are gathered (514)
Children’s time
Video: The Seriously Surprising Story
Discussion Questions
I wonder how Jesus’ friends felt when Jesus died?
I wonder how they knew Jesus was alive?
Or how they knew the person was Jesus?….
I wonder what it felt like to recognize Jesus?…
I wonder if you have ever been close to Jesus like this?
I wonder how it feels to know Jesus is alive?
I wonder what it was like to tell others that Jesus is alive?
I-say-you-say-Prayer and Lord’s Prayer 535
Song: Jesus, stand among us (452)
Scripture: John 20:19-31
Response: Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord
Message: “Believing Beyond a Doubt”
During a recent conflict in the Middle East, Ian and Jake Jones, who served as Christian Missionary Alliance workers, wrote in their prayer letter to congregations, saying, “The result of fighting and killing has left a profound sense of discouragement hovering over the lands. We have come into closer contact with this conflict several times more than our comfort zone would like. Yesterday, a friend said she was watching a shepherd caring for his flock near the area where guns are fired off. Every time the shots rang out, the sheep scattered in fright. They do this not because they are foolish but because it appears wise.
Each time they scattered, the shepherd touched each of them lightly with his staff and spoke calmly to them. With this, the sheep would slow down, calm down, and begin to rest again because they trusted the shepherd. Then another shot sounded, and the exact same routine would happen all over again. Each time, the sheep needed the shepherd to orient them again and to reassure them that they were still safe. Over and over again, this happened.
We are all like those sheep. When we are frightened, our shepherd reaches out and touches us with his staff, speaking words of calm and comfort. But each time a new fear comes, we scatter again. It’s in the nature of the sheep to fear, and it’s in the nature of the shepherd to bring us peace. As Theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” I think there is a lot of truth in that.
In the very R-rated horror movie From Dusk ‘Till Dawn, the pastor, played by famed actor Harvey Keitel’ says: “Every person who… chooses the service of God as his life’s work has something in common. I don’t care if you’re a preacher, a priest, a nun, a rabbi or a Buddhist monk. Many, many times during your life, you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: Am I a fool? I’m not going through a lapse; what I’ve experienced is closer to awakening.
The disciples are huddled behind locked doors, paralyzed by fear and uncertainty after Jesus’ crucifixion. They are afraid of the unknown and the potential dangers that await them. In the midst of their anxiety, Jesus appears with a message: “Peace be with you.” This greeting dispels fear and reminds us that Christ’s presence brings tranquillity to our troubled hearts. In fact, the word Jesus uses (Irene), seems to me to be more about forgiveness than simple peace. The disciples have all betrayed him and run for their lives. In response, Jesus comes to them with not a tongue like a sword, but words of calm for every one of them. In truth, Jesus had every reason to be angry, but he brought something else instead – Peace. I imagine there were many tears shed in that moment.
We call him “doubting Thomas,” but that is unfair. In the story, Jesus appears to all the other disciples while Thomas is absent. Possibly, he is not in the upper room because while all the others are in hiding, Thomas is still brave enough to go out onto the streets. As a result, he doesn’t see the risen Jesus.
Absent at Jesus’ first appearance, Thomas voices his skepticism, insisting on physical proof of the resurrection. He won’t believe, he says, unless he touches the wounds with his own hand. Thomas’s doubt mirrors our own demands for tangible assurances. And like us, he has not seen the risen Lord. Thomas is our stand-in. He’s us.
When Jesus appears a second time, He invites Thomas to touch His wounds, but in that moment, Thomas doesn’t. Nothing in the text suggests that Thomas needs to. He’s moved beyond doubt and into belief. Thomas experiences a conversion of belief. Instead of touching the wounds, he immediately cries out, “My Lord and my God.”
It’s like that for many of us. For others, it can be more difficult than that. Without a period of trust being built up between the sheep and the shepherd, many remain stuck in places of doubt.
Carl Sagan was fascinated that educated adults with the wonders of science manifest all around them could cling to beliefs that are based on unverifiable testimony from observers who had been dead for 2000 years. “You’re so smart. Why do you believe in a God?” He once asked Vicor Joan Brown Campbell. She found this a surprising question from someone who had no trouble accepting the existence of black holes, which no one had ever observed before. “You’re so smart, why don’t you believe in a God?” She answered.
Sagan never wavered in his agnosticism, even as he was dying. “There was no deathbed confession”, his wife Anne says, “no appeals to God, no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I, who had been inseparable for over 20 years, were not saying goodbye forever”. “Didn’t he want to believe? someone asked.” “No,” she responded, “Carl never wanted to believe”, she said fiercely. “He wanted only to know.”
Jesus’ response, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” extends a promise to us, that faith does not require physical evidence. Not everyone takes him up on that.
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And I find a lot of comfort in that. Because like everyone I have my moments too.
I guess that is part of why Christians have created so many statements of faith. Saying them over and over again, helps us hold on to certain ideas so that those ideas can come flooding back to us when we feel challenged.
Judaism has the Shammah, Islam has the Shahadah. But Christians responding to Jesus’s question, who do you say I am, have produced thousands upon thousands of statements of faith across the centuries and the world. As a capstone to his lifelong interest in the central text of the Christian faith, theologian Yaroslav Pelikan collected the four-volume work titled Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. In the first volume, I find one particular creed extremely interesting: the Maasai Creed from Nigeria, which is an Africanized English version of the Apostles Creed. In one place it says “Jesus was always on safari and doing good”. In another place it proudly declares “that after Jesus had been tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross and died, he lay buried in the grave. But the hyenas never touched him. And on the third day, he rose from the dirt. He ascended to the sky, and he is Lord.” As creeds go, that’s pretty hard to beat, I’d say.
The author of John concludes this section of scripture about Jesus appearing to the disciples by stating the purpose of these accounts—to move the reader from first-hand witnesses to the next generation of the faithful. It’s meant to demonstrate moving beyond doubt and into possibility and then ultimately faith and belief.
But even belief is complicated sometimes.
In John 7, John the Baptist is in prison, and at this point, he’s no longer sure he’s found the right guy. He sends his disciples to meet with Jesus with one question on their lips: “Are you really the Messiah?” They ask. Asking the same question puts you in good company. You just can’t ignore the answer.
Sometimes we are all like the father from Mark 9 calling out to God, “I believe, help my unbelief!” Our world is filled with uncertainties, but like Thomas, we are invited to move beyond doubt, to embrace faith with our hearts open to the transformative power of Christ.
Believing may not always be easy, especially when surrounded by doubt, but today’s passage reassures us that doubt can become a pathway to deeper faith when we honestly seek truth with an open heart.
It’s not exactly how I was raised, but I think sometimes, like John the Baptist or Thomas, doubt can lead us closer to God just as long as we keep seeking out truth. In today’s passage, we find reassurance that Jesus meets us in our uncertainty, offering peace and understanding. Wherever you are this morning, Peace be with you. Also… maybe we should stop picking on poor Thomas and come up with a better nickname for him. Amen.
*Song: Jump with Joy (406)
We respond to serve God
Our time of giving
Reflection on giving: Dayspring is empowered to carry out our mission of worship, service, and care by generously given volunteer time, talent, and treasure. Many thanks to all who give so generously!
Prayer of gratitude, and for others and ourselves
Our God, we pause this morning to give thanks. We thank you for the work being done in the fields. We thank you for our hospitals, schools, and mental health agencies, for emergency room workers and all those who work so hard to bring health and healing in our community. We thank you for the ministries of our church, for mission and outreach, the sound booth volunteers, Sunday school teachers and much much more. We thank you for the leaders of this congregation and our Presbytery.
We thank you for one hundred and ten years of mission and ministry in Canada and the world. We give thanks for your care of us in this place. We also pause to pray for our world. We pray for countries and regions that are in conflict. We pray for those in France facing political upheaval. We pray for the United Kingdom and its courts to do justice and for freedom of speech. On our hearts are the people of Pakistan, whose water has been cut off by India, and those in India living in fear of terrorist attacks.
We think this morning of the war in Ukraine, with millions displaced and ongoing military conflict. We pray too for the many ongoing conflicts in various Middle Eastern countries, including Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Israel-Palestine, as well as for Nigeria and Sudan, Russia, Myanmar, and the people North Korea.
We pray for places devastated by natural disaster: those suffering from the wildfires in Australia, flood victims in Indonesia and the Philippines, tornadoes in the Midwest US, and earthquake victims in Turkey.
We pray for friends and neighbours who are struggling with illness and for those caring for them. We pray for organizations that are working to feed and support people in our community who are struggling. Lord be with them, and urge us to bring care and assistance wherever and whenever possible. Amen.
Song: Thine be the glory (258)
Sending out with God’s blessing
As we depart from this gathering, may the peace of Christ fill your hearts and minds, transforming any doubts into renewed faith.
May you be empowered to embrace the love and grace that the risen Savior offers, sharing that same hope and assurance with everyone you encounter.
Go forth in confidence as ambassadors of Christ, carrying the light of His love into the world.
Response: He is Lord
Music postlude
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Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).
The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2025) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.