Aldersgate Day

Opening response

Lord, open our lips.
Our mouth will declare your praise.

Send your Holy Spirit upon us,
and clothe us with power from on high. Alleluia.

Prayer of thanksgiving

Blessed are you, creator God,
to you be praise and glory forever.
As your Spirit moved over the face of the waters
bringing light and life to your creation,
pour out your Spirit on us today
that we may walk as children of light
and by your grace reveal your presence.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.

The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and forever.
Amen.

Hymn

Inspirer of the ancient seers

Charles Wesley

Inspirer of the ancient seers
Who wrote from thee the sacred page,
The same through all succeeding years;
To us, in our degenerate age,
The spirit of thy word impart,
And breathe the life into our heart.

While now thine oracles we read
With earnest prayer and strong desire,
O let thy Spirit from thee proceed,
Our souls to awaken and inspire,
Our weakness help, our darkness chase,
And guide us by the light of grace.

Whenever in error’s path we rove,
The living God through sin forsake,
Our conscience by thy word reprove,
Convince and bring the wanderers back,
Deep wounded by thy Spirit’s sword,
And then by Gilead’s balm restored.

The sacred lessons of thy grace,
Transmitted through thy word, repeat,
And train us up in all thy ways
To make us in thy will complete;
Fulfill thy love’s redeeming plan,
And bring us to a perfect man.

Thus furnished from thy treasury,
O may we always ready stand
To help the souls redeemed by thee,
In what their various states demand
To teach, convince, correct, reprove,
And build them up in holiest love!

Confession of sin

Come, Holy Spirit of God,
and search our hearts with the light of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
No other commandment is greater than these.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

After a period of reflection

Come, let us return to the Lord and say:

Lord our God,
in our sin we have avoided your call.
Our love for you is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that disappears early.
Have mercy on us;
deliver us from judgment;
bind up our wounds and revive us;
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

cf Hosea 6

May almighty God,
who sent his Son into the world to save sinners,
bring us his pardon and peace, now and forever.
Amen.

Psalm 2

Refrain:
The Lord is his people’s strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed.

Why do the nations rage,
and the peoples plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take a stand,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD, and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let’s break their bonds apart,
and cast their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens will laugh.
The Lord will have them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his anger,
and terrify them in his wrath:
“Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.”

I will tell of the decree:
The LORD said to me, “You are my son.
Today I have become your father.
Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance,
the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron.
You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Now therefore be wise, you kings.
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way,
for his wrath will soon be kindled.
Blessed are all those who take refuge in him.

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

Refrain:
The Lord is his people’s strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed.

Psalm prayer

Most high and holy God,
lift our eyes to your Son
enthroned on Calvary;
and as we behold his meekness,
shatter our earthly pride;
for he is Lord forever and ever.

Psalm 29

Refrain:
The LORD will bless his people with peace.

Ascribe to the LORD, you sons of the mighty,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to his name.
Worship the LORD in holy array.

The LORD’s voice is on the waters.
The God of glory thunders, even the LORD on many waters.
The LORD’s voice is powerful.
The LORD’s voice is full of majesty.
The LORD’s voice breaks the cedars.
Yes, the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes them also to skip like a calf;
Lebanon and Sirion like a young, wild ox.
The LORD’s voice strikes with flashes of lightning.
The LORD’s voice shakes the wilderness.
The LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The LORD’s voice makes the deer calve,
and strips the forests bare.
In his temple everything says, “Glory!”

The LORD sat enthroned at the Flood.
Yes, the LORD sits as King forever.
The LORD will give strength to his people.
The LORD will bless his people with peace.

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

Refrain:
The LORD will bless his people with peace.

Psalm prayer

Open our ears, glorious Lord Christ,
to hear the music of your voice
above the chaos of this world;
open our eyes to see the vision of your glory,
for you are our King, now and forever.

Old Testament reading

Deuteronomy 31:30-32:14

Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.

Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
My doctrine will drop as the rain.
My speech will condense as the dew,
as the misty rain on the tender grass,
as the showers on the herb.
For I will proclaim the LORD’s name.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock: his work is perfect,
for all his ways are just.
A God of faithfulness who does no wrong,
just and right is he.
They have dealt corruptly with him.
They are not his children, because of their defect.
They are a perverse and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the LORD,
foolish and unwise people?
Isn’t he your father who has bought you?
He has made you and established you.
Remember the days of old.
Consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the children of men,
he set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.
For the LORD’s portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land,
in the waste howling wilderness.
He surrounded him.
He cared for him.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
that flutters over her young,
he spread abroad his wings,
he took them,
he bore them on his feathers.
The LORD alone led him.
There was no foreign god with him.
He made him ride on the high places of the earth.
He ate the increase of the field.
He caused him to suck honey out of the rock,
oil out of the flinty rock;
butter from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs,
rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
with the finest of the wheat.
From the blood of the grape, you drank wine.

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

1 John 3:11-24

For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another— unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?

My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth and persuade our hearts before him, because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have boldness towards God; so whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded. He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.

Silence may be kept.

The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)

Luke 1:68-79

Refrain:
Christ has gone up on high and has led captivity captive. Alleluia.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people;
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
(as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old),
salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show mercy toward our fathers,
to remember his holy covenant,
the oath which he swore to Abraham our father,
to grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
should serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the dawn from on high will visit us,
to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death;
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

Refrain:
Christ has gone up on high and has led captivity captive. Alleluia.

Brief silence.

The Apostle’s Creed

Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Intercession and thanksgiving

Prayers may be offered for:

the day and its tasks
the world and its needs
the church and her life

Prayers may include the following concerns:

God’s royal priesthood, for empowerment by the Spirit
Those who wait on God, that they may find renewal
All people, that they may acknowledge the kingdom of the ascended Christ
The earth, for productivity and for fruitful harvests
All who are struggling with broken relationships

Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.

Response

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

God of mercy,
who inspired John and Charles Wesley with zeal for your gospel:
grant to all people boldness to proclaim your word
and a heart ever to rejoice in singing your praises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
as our Savior taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.

Conclusion

May the Spirit kindle in us the fire of God’s love.
Amen.