10/26 - Peacemakers and The Path of Blessing

Greetings St. Andrew's Family

This Sunday at St. Andrew’s, our worship centers on one of the most challenging and hopeful of Jesus’ Beatitudes — “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Pastor Norma’s message, “Called to Be Peacemakers: Living as Children of God,” invites us to explore what it means to be shaped by peace rather than by the noise and division that surround us.

Our worship will weave this theme together through Word, Drama, and Song. The choir opens with “Blest Are They,” a hymn that echoes the entire journey of the Beatitudes — reminding us that God’s blessings often come disguised in struggle, loss, and longing.

Then, through Kenn Bullock’s adaptation of Music Tom's powerful drama, “The Path of Blessing,” we’ll witness one man’s journey through those same words of Jesus. Step by step, he moves from brokenness toward surrender — discovering that peace isn’t the absence of pain, but the presence of grace. 

The drama culminates in the tender strains of “I Surrender All.” The song rises from silence as a prayer — first quiet and personal, then swelling as the congregation joins in. In that moment, the church becomes a living symbol of God’s peace enfolding one who has finally laid everything down. And as a final expression of freedom, we’ll blend in the chorus of “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone),” declaring that surrender and peace lead not to loss, but to liberation.

This service beautifully captures how worship, drama, and music can tell a single story:
that the path of peace begins with letting go — of pride, of control, of resentment — and trusting God to make something new from what we’ve surrendered.

So as we sing and listen this Sunday, may we each take a step along our own “path of blessing.”
May our words and music become acts of peacemaking.
And may we live as children of God — people whose lives make peace visible in a world that needs it so desperately.

Musically

Music Tom 

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