This Little Boat

Welcome to your online Sunday worship from St. George’s, Georgetown for Sunday, June 20, 2021.

We have returned to our own parish online worship this week.

Not only is today Father’s Day, today is also the virtual Walk To End ALS. Thank you to all those who helped support our Team the St. George’s Saints as “walkers” or as supporters. Our online total does not include pledges collected in-person, but you can check our teams online total or add your support on our team page.

Also, June 21 is is the day we mark and celebrate the National Indigenous Day of Prayer. I have included a link to a liturgy prepared by the Office of the National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop at the bottom of this post.

Family Ministry

Our family ministry resources this week focus on our reading from Mark’s Gospel, chapter 4, verses 35 to 41, of Jesus calming the storm. In our weekly Sunday email, there are links to helpful family pages that help explain all the Sunday readings and a fun comic page about this week’s lesson that can be coloured.

This week’s resources also has this wonderful prayer that families can pray together:

Dear God, you are with us when we feel uncertain and afraid. Help us feel your steady presence during the storms in our lives. Be with emergency workers and keep them safe. Amen.

Please sign up for our weekly emails to get those links to these great resources to use together with your family.  

Opening Music

For our opening song this week, I have chosen a favourite hymn of mine from our old red hymn book, “I Feel The Winds of God Today” which fits perfectly with our text today.

Reading

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”1

Prayers and Message

Here is this Sunday’s prayers and message: 

Prayers of the People

Today we pray, for this town of Halton Hills, for all medical staff, all essential frontline workers and their families, for those working with the vulnerable, and for those that are helping to distribute the vaccine, for our neighbours and our friends, Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy.

For the aged and infirm, for the widowed and orphans, for the sick and suffering, for all in any need, Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy.

For the dying, for those who mourn, for the faithful whom we entrust to the Lord in hope, as we look forward to the day when we share the fullness of the resurrection, Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy.

(To find the list of those we are praying for in our parish please sign up for our Parish email. To add a name to our prayers please contact me.)

Closing Music

To close this week I have chosen the traditional hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”

My contemporary recommendation for this week’s closing song is “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail).”

I wish you all a blessed and safe Sunday and week.

If you are curious about the podcast I speak about in my message this week, here is the link: https://www.groovelectric.com/wehavealwayssharedthislittleboat.html

Thank you for your continued support of the ministry and mission of St. George’s. I do look forward to us being able to gather together again in-person when we are able.

Be Well and God Bless.

Peace,

The Rev’d Canon Rob Park

  1. Scripture quotation is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Worship with Indigenous Anglicans and allies in a service for the National Indigenous Day of Prayer.