We hear God’s CALL TO WORSHIP in Habakkuk 2:20
The Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him!
We listen in silence for God’s still small voice, CENTERING ourselves, becoming aware of God’s presence within us and around us
We respond to God with ADORATION following the words of the Universalist “Hymns of the Spirit”
Let us adore the ever-living God, and render praise to the One who spread out the heavens and established the earth, whose glory is revealed in the heavens above and whose greatness is manifest throughout the world. He is our God; there is no other. We bow the head and bend the knee and magnify the King of kings, the Holy One, praised be he.
We hear God’s CALL TO REPENTANCE in Luke 15:20–24
And he got up and went to his father. But, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was deeply moved; he ran and threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants.’
But the father turned to his servants and said ‘Be quick and fetch a robe – the very best – and put it on him; give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet; and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for here is my son who was dead, and is alive again, was lost, and is found.’
We respond with CONFESSION using the words of Wilhelm Löhe
Lord Jesus Christ,
you carry the lost sheep back into the fold in your arms,
and you graciously hear the confession of the tax collector;
mercifully forgive all my guilt and sin.
Lord, you hear the penitent thief,
you have prepared an inheritance of mercy for your people,
and have not withheld pardon from the sinner;
hear the prayers of your servants according to your mercy.
Amen.
We hear God’s teaching for our lives in THE READING OF THE LAW in Micah 6:6–8
With what should I come before the Lord?
Bow myself before the God on high?
Should I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
With ten thousand streams of oil?
Should I give him my firstborn son for my guilt,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
The Lord has told you what is good,
what he demands of you:
Only to do justice and love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.
We PRAISE God in the INVITATORY PSALM, the VenitePsalm 95:1–7 · Venite, exultemus
1O come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.
2Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, *
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.
3For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
4In his hand are all the corners of the earth, *
and the strength of the hills is his also.
5The sea is his, and he made it; *
and his hands prepared the dry land.
6O come, let us worship and bow down, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7For he is the Lord our God, *
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
We PRAISE God in THE PSALM OF THE DAYPsalm 25:1–9 · Ad te, Domine, levavi
1To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; *
let me not be humiliated, *
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
2Let none who look to you be put to shame; *
let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.
3Show me your ways, O Lord, *
and teach me your paths.
4Lead me in your truth and teach me, *
for you are the God of my salvation; *
in you have I trusted all the day long.
5Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, *
for they are from everlasting.
6Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; *
remember me according to your love *
and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.
7Gracious and upright is the Lord; *
therefore he teaches sinners in his way.
8He guides the humble in doing right *
and teaches his way to the lowly.
9All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness *
to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
We pray a PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION in the words of George Herbert
O, make your Word a swift Word,
passing from the ear to the heart,
from the heart to the life and conversation;
that, as the rain returns not empty,
so neither may your Word,
but accomplish that for which it is given. Amen.
We hear God speaking to us in THE READING for the dayIsaiah 30:18–26
Sunday, 6 December 2026 · Advent
18Therefore the LORD will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him. 19For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he hears you, he will answer you. 20Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers won’t be hidden any more, but your eyes will see your teachers; 21and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” 22You shall defile the overlaying of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You shall tell it, “Go away!”
23He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures. 24The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savoury feed, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. 25There will be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.
World English Bible. Or read it at Bible Gateway in the NRSV: Isaiah 30:18–26 · the short form, Isaiah 30:18–21.
We REFLECT in silence
We greet the day with THE SONG OF ZECHARIAH, the Benedictus Luke 1:68–79
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham,
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
Free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
To give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
We pray the LORD’S PRAYER as Jesus taught his disciples, in those words which are most meaningful to us
Our [ Father / Mother / Creator ] in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our [ trespasses / sins ]
as we forgive those who [ trespass / sin ] against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
We pray a PRAYER OF INTERCESSION in the words of the Book of Common Prayer
God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy — increase and multiply on us your mercy; that you being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
We silently pray PERSONAL PRAYER
Followed by
Amen.
We pray a PRAYER FOR UNITY OF ALL PEOPLE
God, you have made of one blood all nations of the earth, and your will is that all your children should be gathered into one family of love: break down, we pray you, the walls that divide us; deliver us from hardness of heart and from contempt for those who differ from us; and hasten the time when all shall dwell together in that peace which passes understanding, knowing you as Father and one another as brothers and sisters; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one. Amen.
We pray a PRAYER OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING in the words of Hugh Cameron
For the life which you have given and preserved,
the world in which we dwell,
and the hope of everlasting blessedness,
we thank you, O God.
For the pains and distresses which have moulded us as clay is moulded by the potter,
and for the consolations which so often like springs in the desert have refreshed our weariness,
we thank you, O God.
For comfort and help in sorrow,
in pain,
in bereavement,
and when flesh and heart failed,
we thank you, O God.
For the warnings of your spirit speaking to our spirits when the sky was bright and all people spoke well of us,
we thank you, O God.
For the life and doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for his love and sacrifice,
for his boundless compassion,
and for the glorious company of those who have followed him in weakness unto victory,
we thank you, O God.
A concluding BENEDICTION or blessing Numbers 6:24–26
The Lord bless us and keep us;
the Lord make his face to shine upon us,
and be gracious to us;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon us,
and give us peace.
Amen.