SUNDAY SERVICE
June 15, 2025
Welcome & Immerse Series Introduction
This Summer, during Sunday Service, we are offering space to reimagine and apply the key components of life and ministry within a framework of Christian Community Development. These Sunday gatherings will offer space for worship, conversation, insight, and practical skills for engaging in the renewal of all things.
This Sunday, we will be leaning into the key component of listening to the Community
Introduction to Immerse Component: Listening to the Community
The CCD practice of listening to the community may be one of the most practical components, yet it is one of the hardest to do well. We often sabotage the sacred act of listening because we feel the pressure to produce results, whether the tension comes from external institutional constraints or our own internal drive to make something happen. It also seems counterintuitive to sit, listen, and wait to act in situations where there seems to be so much that needs to be done. Listening to the community involves a posture of learning and empathy.
“A listening heart is always open, sensitive to the joy and pain of others, offering a space within itself for the other to enter. It gives each person what is so badly needed—an affirmation of their place in this world.” —Eliezer Shore
Opening Call & Response Prayer
As people, as neighbors, as a community of faith –
we gather together:
to listen.
to learn.
to worship.
To lament.
To praise.
To share.
to pray.
to be with God and one another.
it is out of God’s love,
that we live and move and have our being.
Amen.
Worship
Good, Good Father
Father’s Day Prayer
God of tenderness,
We thank you for our fathers. Those with us and those gone before us. Those who held us and showed us what it means to belong to one another. In a society that often demands a singular portrait of the masculine, awakened memories and stories of the tenderness of fatherhood, our narrative would not allow the men in our lives to be reduced. Grant those who have longed for their father more than they have been held by him the space to lament, to grieve in the way that they need to. Place people in their lives to remind them they are no less worthy of love. Liberate them to name their deepest longings so that they would not be rushed from their grieving. May they be held and loved and known.
-written by Cole Arthur Riley
Scripture Readings
Proverbs 18:2
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.
James 1:19
Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to grow angry.
Worship
Who Are You? by L.D. Kidd
5 Minute Connection
Announcements
Baptism Sunday, July 27th, during the WHCC pool party, 5:30-730 PM
Baptism is a practice of recognizing and responding to God’s abundant love and grace. Regardless of the tradition of immersion, sprinkling, or pouring of the water, Baptism is a gift of living water and welcome!
Interested in receiving the gift of Baptism? Email stephanie@wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org
Call for Volunteers Summer 2025!
Please consider volunteering this summer on the grounds team! We would love your help weeding, watering plants, and picking up trash around the church and Peace House. If you are interested, please reach out to Ashley Gorman at office@wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org.
WHCC Talent Show 2.025
The mics are hot. The instruments are tuned. The talent is local. And the vibes? You'll have to be here to find out!
Join us on Friday, June 13th, from 6:30–8:00 PM at Wellington Heights Community Church (1600 4th Ave SE, Cedar Rapids) for a family-friendly, all-ages celebration of creativity, rhythm, and community.
Featuring:
DJ SOULKIDD
Rapper YON
And 6 incredible featured acts from our community
Want your shot on stage? We have 3–5 open mic spots up for grabs.
To sign up or for questions, email: worship@wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org
Let’s raise the roof with love, laughter, and local talent.
Special Readings - Emmett C.
“There is a difference between truly listening and waiting for your turn to talk”. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously, and discovering their own true selves”. —Henri Nouwen
“Listening is where love begins”. -Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Immerse Video
Listening to the Community
Communal Discussion
What practical advice did the verses from Proverbs offer to you as a CCD practitioner?
In what tangible ways does being quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger help guide you in listening to the community?
What challenges or limitations might there be for those who are from outside the neighborhood asking questions or seeking information about the neighborhood? What are some other barriers that might impede your ability to truly hear what people around you are saying?
Prayers of the People
Loving and faithful God, we thank you for uniquely creating each of us,
May you continue to guide us toward friendship and mutuality as the paradigm for mission, where people are valued, respected, with shared giving and receiving.
We pray that our congregation will experience a rich and free sharing of the love and diversity of resources that you have generously given us.
Knowing that we are called to be your people,
We humbly ask that you work powerfully through us
To accomplish your purposes in the world.
We pray for the courage, the patience, and the generosity of spirit that comes from imitating the love you have shown us in Christ.
We long for your Spirit’s power to make us more Christlike
In our thoughts, words, and deeds.
Help us to think of others and their needs, even now as we pray for
Creation, in its groaning, helps us to be good stewards of the earth, the world, and in its suffering.
Help us to be generous with what has been given to us
In our community, nation, and world, guide and help us to be instruments of Your peace in a time of deep polarization.
May your peace reign and justice roll down like a river.
Be near, God.
For those grieving in our community in the recent loss of loved ones, may your comfort and love be near.
For those living with chronic illness, terminal illness, or mental health issues, grant your healing grace.
For those whose lives have been suddenly altered by war, violence, unjust systems, natural disaster, or job loss.
Restore wholeness to whatever is broken in our lives, community, nation, and world.
We pray in the name of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and forever.
Amen.
Benediction
