Addtional Suggested  Memorial Service 

 We Gather

Hymn:  “We Gather Together”

Opening Sentences

 Minister:  All people who dwell on earth, Serve God with mirth,

     Foretell His praise, Come before Him and rejoice!

People:   Know that He is God, He made us, We belong to Him.

 
Minister:  We are His people, the sheep of His flock.

All:        Let us all enter His gates with praise, Approach His courts with

        joy and trembling, Praising His Name, Blessing His Name, always!

We Humble Ourselves Before God

 
Minister:  When we come into His Holy presence, our own humanity is laid bare.

People:  When we stand in the living presence of truth, our own falsehood

        is revealed.

 
Minister:  People of God, let us acknowledge who we are and ask God to forgive us.

 All:    Our God is patient and keeps His promise to forgive and is always

  ready to forgive.  Let us approach Him now with faith…

(Silent Prayer)

 
Hymn of Choice

 We Respond to God’s Words to Us

 
Responsive Prayer

All:       We listen for your Voice, O God, prepare us to hear it.

We expect your Word, help us to accept it.

We wait for your Wisdom, teach us to understand it.

We seek your Truth, show us how to find it.

We want to know your Will, free us to do it, AMEN

Scriptural Prayer   I Cor. 2:9-13

Grant us, O God, Your Spirit to reveal things beyond our seeing and hearing, which you have prepared for those who love you.  Share with us your wisdom, help us to understand the gifts which you give us, and teach us to speak of them in words found not by human wisdom but by your Spirit, AMEN

9/11 Prayer

O God, whose love broke through death’s dark prison, open wide our hearts to receive this transforming power.  We pray for those among us who have lost loved ones in the 9/11 tragedy many years ago.  Heal them and restore them, and touch all our hearts with compassion and understanding for those who still feel its sting.  Touch our world with healing and cleansing and forgiveness.  Hear our prayers for those still chained to the past, steeped in age-old guilt and imprisoned by anxiety and loneliness, for those held captive to rigid ideas and worn-out attitudes.  Give them courage to release themselves from those dark tombs, to step out into the light of your love, into the fresh air of a new day filled with new possibilities, we pray,  AMEN

 
(Various Other Prayers)

 We Dismiss

Hymn of Choice

Minister:  Lord, let your servants go in peace, your promises have been filled.

People:  We have seen your light revealed to the nations,

Minister:  Bringing glory to yourself.  We have seen your salvation revealed to the

     world,bringing light and life to all who respond.

AMEN   (Adapted from Matt. 5:16; Luke 2:29-32)