8/23 - A Word We Proclaim

Greetings St. Andrew's Family

This week, our worship begins at the Source. We open with Praise the Source of Faith and Learning, a hymn that beautifully reminds us that faith and learning are not competing currents, but streams that God can bring together into one faithful course. The fourth verse captures the heart of this week’s worship: “As two currents in a river fight each other’s undertow, till converging they deliver one coherent steady flow… blend, O God, our faith and learning till they carve a single course, till they join as one, returning praise and thanks to you, the Source.” We come before God recognizing that everything we are and everything we learn has its beginning in God, the Source of our faith, our understanding, and our calling.

That sense of being grounded in the Source then becomes very tangible in our Blessing of the Backpacks. At the close of the children’s moment, we invite everyone, not only children, to bring forward the bags they carry into the year ahead: school bags, work bags, backpacks, briefcases, or whatever represents the places where we learn, work, serve, and live. We bless not simply the bags themselves, but the people who carry them. We ask God to go with us into classrooms and offices, into places of learning and places of work, into new beginnings and familiar routines. The blessing reminds us that our faith does not remain inside the walls of the sanctuary. God goes with us wherever we carry our lives.

From there, we move into illumination. Our centering song, You Are Welcome Here by Chris Muliga, gives us a moment to open ourselves to God’s presence. As we continue singing it for the fourth week, the song becomes more than a repeated piece of music, it becomes a prayer of preparation. We make room for God to speak, to shine light into our lives, and to shape what we hear and what we do next.

That brings us to the Gospel of John 1:1–5, where we encounter Christ as the Word: “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word is with God, the Word is God, and in that Word is life, and that life is the light of humanity. The movement from Source to Illumination becomes clear: the God who is our Source speaks, and the Word brings light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. We do not simply gather to hear an ancient word; we gather to encounter the living Word who continues to illuminate our lives.

Our response, I’m Gonna Sing So God Can Use Me, turns that illumination outward. Once we have received the light, we cannot simply keep it for ourselves. The song becomes our response to the Word: God, use what you have placed in me. Use my voice. Use my gifts. Use my life. This is where worship begins to move from illumination toward witness. We have been blessed, taught, and illuminated, not for our own sake, but so that God can use us.

The sermon, “A Word We Proclaim,” carries that movement one step further. The Word we encounter is also the Word we proclaim. Evangelism is not simply about having the right answers or convincing someone to believe what we believe. It is about having encountered something so life-giving that we are compelled to share it. The light we receive becomes a word we speak, a story we tell, a life we embody, and a witness we offer to the world around us.

Even our congregational offertory, He Keeps Me Singing, continues that witness. “There’s within my heart a melody” becomes a testimony that what God has planted within us cannot remain silent. The melody is not merely something we sing in worship; it becomes something we carry with us. Like the backpacks we have just blessed, we carry something from this place into the world; a song, a word, a story, and the presence of God.

Finally, we are sent with I Love to Tell the Story. The worship that began with the Source has moved through illumination and now arrives at witness. We have remembered where our faith comes from, opened ourselves to the light of the Word, responded to that Word, and now we are sent to tell the story. We leave not simply having attended worship, but having been equipped for evangelism: to carry the light of Christ into the places where we live, work, learn, and serve.

The arc of this week is therefore simple but powerful: Source → Illumination → Witness. God is our Source. God’s Word illuminates us. And what God illuminates in us, God sends us to share. We begin gathered around the Source, we are illuminated by the Word, and we leave as witnesses, carrying our faith into the world just as surely as we carry our bags into the places God sends us.