The church remains closed this week. For this week's service, we are combining Sunday School with worship. Please follow along through today's service, reading the text and watching the videos.

Good morning!
We are so glad that you've decided to join us today!
Today is the first Sunday in Advent.

​Long ago the prophet Isaiah spoke these words of promise about Jesus to God's people.

Long before Jesus was born, God promised it would be so. People joyfully celebrate Christmas because God gave the world His own Son, the very first Christmas gift. We make room for him in our hearts.

Today we light the Promise Candle.

Let us pray:
Dear heavenly Father, as we begin the Advent season, teach us the true meaning of Christmas. Each time we light the candle of promise, help us to think about Your promise to send Jesus Your Son. Amen.

For the fall quarter, our Sunday school lessons have revolved around the topic of love. Today's topic is Impartial Love. Today's scripture lesson is James 2:1-13.

Joys and Concerns

Birthdays
​Nov.  29th Jim Gregg, Connor Diesel
         30th Susan Paul
Dec.   1st  Marilyn Hickman, Kathy Bell
          2nd Andrew Lozano
 
SYMPATHY: The Family of Beverly Mounts
The Family of Esther Krajacic
The Family of Dale Taggart (Missionary/Flagstaff)
The Family of Dave Burt
 
This year, the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is posting an online Advent devotional. It will be available daily on our website as well. Just follow this link.

This is a year unlike any other. We won't be able to have our traditional Sunday School Christmas Program. However, we are looking at doing something virtually. At the bottom of today's service, there is a quick survey so we can see what everyone might be interested in doing.
 
We were able to remove Beverly Selvaggi and Megan Isley from our on going prayer list as they are both doing well.  Pastor Gary remains on two weeks quarantine.  Dana Wilson will not hear the results of the biopsy until Monday.  He is in Jefferson Memorial Hospital due to an infection, please pray for healing.  Betty Matthew’s cousin Carolyn Grimes is in the Washington Hospital and needs our prayers.    
 
Continued prayers for Roma Grose, Ruth Hampe, Susan Schively, Jimmy Davis, Judy Donaldson, Margo Johnson, Melissa Pedigo, Aaron Blake, Lisa Phillips, Mickey Gubitti, Chip Rogers, Dixie Avoila, Virginia Coffield,  Dennis McWreath, Chuck Warlow, Chuck Dicks, Randy Moore, Margaret Knabenshue, Janet Schively, Mary Ann Durila, Patty Nagey, Dr. Craig Fox, Karen Eisiminger, Kelley Gump, Mary Ann McFeeley, Ron Westfall, Ed Horne, DonnaWest, June and Keith McGill, Dianna Donaldson, Jessica Duke, Chuck Montecello, April Hincy, 3 yr. old Hayden Dijean, Glenn Miles, Dave Cummings, Ken Jackson, Doug Ward,  Mark Knabenshue, Rick McFeeley, Dick McFeeley, Ricky Amos, Alex Kelley, Deron Wood, Susan Alberti, Bryan Dunn, Pastor Gary and John O’Hara.  

Benediction

We're so glad that you decided to join us today. If you need anything during this time, please contact a session member. If you have requests for our prayer list, please contact Linda Miller. If you need food from our food pantry, please contact Becky Phillips.

All of the information normally found in our bulletin is below the video. Simply click on "Read More" to load the rest of the bulletin. You can use this to follow the service, as well as to pray our unison prayers. All joys and concerns that we know, as well as our continuing prayer list is within the Joys and Concerns. Announcements can be found at the bottom of this service

Hymn: Love Devine, All Loves Excelling
 
Call to Worship
​The grace of God was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. It has now been revealed through God's Son Jesus Christ. He has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. It is this grace and faith we proclaim and hold on to. It is this God and Savior that we worship. Let us praise and adore our living God that sent his Son Jesus to share a faith with us and share with others.

Good morning!
We're so glad you decided to join us for Sunday School today!

This week's hymn was a suggestion I received last week. If you have hymn requests please let me know.

Thanks to Don Hershell for the prayer and Sunday School lesson this week!

When we meet together in person, we share our joys and concerns. Take a few moments to consider what is on your mind right now. There is a lot of uncertainty with what lies ahead — especially with fall coming, the economy on less-than-ideal footing, and schools opening up in different ways. If you would like others to pray for these as well, you can add a comment at the bottom of this post.
​
Pray the following prayer as together we face the future, knowing that God goes with us.

O God of wisdom, as our children are headed back to school and college to learn anew, help us pass on to them the wisdom that has been given down to us from the generations before us. Help our children as they learn their daily lessons to listen and learn. Help their teachers have the patience and knowledge to teach well. Help them as they learn life’s lessons of dealing with other people around them. Help us as we guide them through those lessons.
​
We ask for your wisdom to discern your ways and path for our own lives. We ask for your wisdom to discern how to deal with others we meet, live with, work with, shop with, drive our roads with, wait in line with, eat with and be with daily. We ask for your wisdom in the difficult situations we may have to deal with as we go through life.

We ask for your wisdom when voting in the upcoming elections. We ask for your wisdom in dealing with injustices in our world. We ask for wisdom for our leaders in our world, our countries, our states, and our communities. We ask for wisdom for our church leaders, worldwide and local.

We ask for wisdom for our Pastors as they preach your word, inspire, lead and grow us as disciples. We ask for your wisdom as we reach out to those in need in our communities and in our world. We ask for wisdom as we minister to those who are homebound and in nursing homes. We ask for your wisdom as we minister to those in hospitals, in recovery and rehab.

We ask for your wisdom that not only enlightens us but transforms us and guides us in our daily walk with you.  Amen
(written by Rev Abi, and posted on Rev Abi’s Long and Winding Road. http://vicarofwadley.blogspot.ca/)

Good morning! Welcome!
We're so glad you decided to join us today!

Every week, we use Psalm 19:14 as our benediction. This hymn came up as referencing that scripture.

When we meet together in person, we share our joys and concerns. Take a few moments to consider your past week, and the joys and worries it brought you. If you would like others to pray for these as well, you can add a comment at the bottom of this post. 

This week's prayer is actually going to be two prayers put together. One is called A Prayer for Inner Strength, and the other is a morning prayer. We will start with a prayer together. Then, we will include our personal prayers. Finally, we will pray together again.

Good morning!
We're so glad you decided to join us!

If you have any hymn requests, or ideas for our morning prayer, please let me know! I've also found an online tool to find hymns to go with scripture. If you have a favorite scripture, I can look up a hymn to go with that, too! You can either email the church (north.buffalo.church@gmail.com), or you can call or text.

This week, our hymn references a suggestion for Philippians 4:13:  
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

When we meet together in person, we share our joys and concerns together. Take some time to think about your past week. What made you happy, thankful, or joyful? What made you feel worried or sad? 

This week, we will use the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. We will pray the first part together. Then, in the middle, pray for your own joys and concerns. You may also want to pray for those people on our continuing prayer list. Then, we will pray the end of the Prayer together.

Good morning!
We're so glad that you've decided to join us for Sunday School!

When we meet on Sunday mornings, we always share joys and concerns from our lives. Take some time now to think back on your week, and consider what joys and concerns you have. These could be personal, for someone you know, or even for the world. 

We have been doing guided prayers. If you see a guided prayer that we could use for Sunday School, something that could be adapted to a guided prayer for Sunday School, or if you would like to write the guided prayer for Sunday School, please let me know! I would love to get some suggestions! You can email the church: north.buffalo.church@gmail.com, or give me a call.

Last week, we followed a suggestion in this article to pray the Psalms like a Christmas tree, by taking a psalm, and adding in our own prayer requests within the psalm... decorating it. I really enjoyed doing that, and thought we could do it again. 

Would you believe that it has been twenty weeks since we have met in person? 

On Sunday mornings, we take time to consider what blessings we may have had during the week, as well as our worries. Take some time to think about these joys and concerns. You may share your personal joys and concerns in a comment below, if you feel comfortable doing so. You may also want to look at the prayer list in last week's worship service for a list of people to pray for.

I have always liked the Psalms, and was reading this article (which is super short, and worth reading) about how to "Pray the Psalms." I particularly liked the option to, "pray the Psalm like an apple tree or a Christmas tree." For this week's guided prayer, I have picked a Psalm at random for us to pray like a Christmas tree. Guidance will be in a different color.