SUNDAY SERVICE
November 16, 2025
Welcome & Opening Prayer
Mighty God, thank you for your merciful ways.
You’re slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Hear us as we call on you, grateful for your promise to watch over us.
Hear us as our lament & cries pour forth.
Hear us as we imagine and work for peace on earth.
Amen.
Worship
Amazing Grace (Instrumental)
Call & Response Prayer
We confess to each other and to You, our Creator,
that we fall short of being what we have been created to be,
what we have committed ourselves to be,
disciples of the kingdom.
Hear us, forgive us,
renew our resolve to build the kingdom of peace.
We often seek out the easiest paths;
paths of least involvement in places where we might be uncomfortable,
or paths of self-centeredness.
Hear us, forgive us,
renew our resolve to build the kingdom of peace.
Forgive us for getting so caught up in instant gratification
and its false messages of hope
that we lose sight of the hope of the kingdom,
which brings healing and peace to a world in turmoil.
Hear us, forgive us,
renew our resolve to build the kingdom of peace.
In this time of worship may we resolve to become more kingdom-minded
to be your peacemakers here and now.
Amen.
CCDA Recap
5-Minute Connection
Announcements
Blessing Box Volunteers
FaithLife Church is hosting a hygiene and food drive for the WHCC Blessing Box. Please email office@wellingtonheightscommunityhurch.org to be one of the many volunteers we need to help restock the Blessing Box weekly!
Children’s Play
Each year, Wellington Heights Community Church hosts a Children’s Christmas Play, and we are excited to start preparing for this year!
Kyrah and Anna Slife will lead the play, and they can’t wait to work with the kids to create another memorable Christmas performance. We hope to see you and your family there!
Email: briana@wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org if your child is interested in participating
C
hristmas Decorating
Join us on our Embodiment Sunday, November 23rd, at 10 a.m. to deck the halls and walls of our church building and peace house in preparation for the Advent season. We will have teams on the inside and outside of the buildings. Hot cocoa and cookies provided. Help us spread the word, the more the merrier!
Advent
Advent begins on the last Sunday of November. During Advent, we remember how, for many years and centuries, the people of God waited for the long-prophesied Messiah, who eventually arrived through the birth of Jesus.
This season of Advent invites us to receive and reflect on God's generosity. Love is the foundation of generous living. We hope that we may notice God’s blessings all around us and respond with generosity toward others and the rest of creation.
Pick one up at the back table or connect with keeyon@wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org for a PDF copy.
Children & Youth Advent Devotional:
The Will to Dream calls us into holy longing, a sacred desire for a world made whole. Rooted in prophetic imagination, this Advent–Epiphany series guides families in practices and reflections to confront despair, embody justice, and claim hope as a radical act. Pick up a free copy upstairs in the Children's Ministry or at the next Youth Group.
The Sounds of Christmas
Join us for our Embodiment Sunday, December 14th from 6–7pm, as we gather for a night filled with live Christmas music and personal stories of what this season means to us. Together, we’ll reflect on the hope, peace, joy, and love that echo through the Christmas story, and through our own. Come ready to listen, sing along, and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.
Building Hope 2.0 Campaign: We have raised $30,000 of our goal of $258,000!
#GivingTuesday Announcement
Jonathan Merritt shares that all hope is not created equal. There is anticipatory hope, which is rooted in the future and says someday, somehow things will get better. This kind of hope, Jonathan says, is fragile as an eggshell. But there is also participatory hope, which is rooted in the present, sees the broken, and says, “Here is where we begin.”
Anticipatory hope prays, imagines and dreams, while participatory hope rolls up its sleeves.
On Giving Tuesday: what does it look like to participate in hope?
Church, this is the question I want all of us to ask ourselves, the question I believe we must answer with our lives if we want to create the kind of world we want to live in. As we make decisions, parent our children, take care of our neighbors, share our resources and cast our votes. It all counts!
Prayerfully consider, how might you embody anticipatory hope and participatory hope in your everyday life? Prayerfully consider giving $5, $50 or $500 dollars toward the Building Hope 2.0 Campaign on #GivingTuesday to meet our 10K by year end goal.
Together as a community, may we anticipate and build hope.
Prayer of Generosity (All Share Aloud)
Generous God, we say “thank you” for the ways Jesus modeled stewardship, sharing all he had as he taught, healed and embodied your love. Guide us as a community to live generously in thought, word and action. May the gifts of generosity given bring about acts of compassion, justice and reconciliation. Open our eyes to see a glimpse of the way your will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.
New Staff Introduction
We are excited to welcome Joy Ernst to the WHCC Staff.
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 65:17-25, CEB
17 Look! I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth:
past events won’t be remembered;
they won’t come to mind.
18 Be glad and rejoice forever
in what I’m creating,
because I’m creating Jerusalem as a joy
and her people as a source of gladness.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad about my people.
No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again.
20 No more will babies live only a few days,
or the old fail to live out their days.
The one who dies at a hundred will be like a young person,
and the one falling short of a hundred will seem cursed.
21 They will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They won’t build for others to live in,
nor plant for others to eat.
Like the days of a tree will be the days of my people;
my chosen will make full use of their handiwork.
23 They won’t labor in vain,
nor bear children to a world of horrors,
because they will be people blessed by the Lord,
they along with their descendants.
24 Before they call, I will answer;
while they are still speaking, I will hear.
25 Wolf and lamb will graze together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but the snake—its food will be dust.
They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
Sermon
Pastor Keeyon
Special Music
Emmett Carter
Benediction
Send us into the world's turbulence as instruments of Your peace. Send us as agents of Your justice, that all might know the truth of Your ways. Send us as artists, who bear the joyful burden of Your creativity, that we might bring light into the darkness, and hope among the despairing.
And may we recognize the joy of connection with Your Spirit and with one another, this day and forever. Amen!
