Service Sunday July 26, 2026
HIGHLAND HILLS UNITED CHURCH
Minden, Ontario
SUNDAY, July 26, 2026
All are Welcome!
Worship Leader: Rev. Dr. Anne Beattie-Stokes
Music Director: Melissa Stephens
Watch a video recording of the whole service using YouTube below
HIGHLAND HILLS UNITED CHURCH
Minden, Ontario
SUNDAY, July 26, 2026
All are Welcome!
(For a Printer Friendly PDF version click this link)
(For Rev. Peter’s Musings PDF version click this link)
Worship Leader: Rev. Dr. Anne Beattie-Stokes
Music Director: Melissa Stephens
THE GATHERING
Welcome and Announcements
Focusing on the Light of Christ
Acknowledgement of Territory ((Unison)
With gratitude and respect we acknowledge that our sacred space is located on Treaty 20 territory in the traditional lands of the Williams Treaties First Nations.
We acknowledge that we as settlers and newcomers are party to these treaties, and so we seek to live in right relations with all as stewards of these lands and waters and as those who care for the needs of all people.
THE APPROACH
Call to Worship
One: Let us lay down our troubles – our worries, concerns
and fears, and enter into this time of worship
with open and trusting hearts.
All: We lay our troubles before God
who is our confidence and our peace.
One: Let us open ourselves to calm and quiet,
and be centred in Love.
All: We open ourselves to the Holy One, known in Jesus,
and with us in the Spirit.
One: Let us worship God together.
Hymn: Come and Find the Quiet Centre VU #374
1. Come and find the quiet center
in the crowded life we lead,
find the room for hope to enter,
find the frame where we are freed:
clear the chaos and the clutter,
clear our eyes, that we can see
all the things that really matter,
be at peace, and simply be.
2. Silence is a friend who claims us,
cools the heat and slows the pace,
God it is who speaks and names us,
knows our being, face to face,
making space within our thinking,
lifting shades to show the sun,
raising courage when we’re shrinking,
finding scope for faith begun.
3. In the Spirit let us travel,
open to each other’s pain,
let our loves and fears unravel,
celebrate the space we gain:
there’s a place for deepest dreaming,
there’s a time for heart to care,
in the Spirit’s lively scheming
there is always room to spare!
Opening Prayer
Ministry of Music
Learning Together
THE WORD
Scripture: Matthew 6:25 - 34 (NRSV)
Poem: I Worried Mary Oliver
Leader: Hear and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church.
ALL: Thanks be to God
Hymn: Bathe Me In Your Light MV #82
1. Bathe me in your light,
O God of All, Creator;
let it shine upon my soul
with healing and with grace.
Be to me a beacon bright
through shadows of life’s wounding,
showing me the way to live in faith,
in your embrace.
2. Bathe me in your love,
O Source of Awe and Wonder;
help me walk the sacred path
of harmony and peace.
May I be attentive to
the musings of your presence,
drinking from the well of hope that brings
the heart release.
3. Bathe me in your grace,
O One of Spirit’s longing;
teach me of your gentle ways
that fill the soul with strength.
Guide me on the pilgrimage
that leads to truth and wholeness,
Fill me with your promise of a love
that knows no length.
Message
The Birds of Worry
Read the Message at the bottom of this page.
OUR RESPONSE
Prayer Music: VU 400
Lord, listen to your children praying,
Lord send your spirit in this place,
Lord listen to your children praying,
Send us love, send us power, send us grace.
Prayers of the People and
The Lord’s Prayer (spoken)
Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness VU #288
1. Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.
Refrain:
Great is thy faithfulness,
Great is thy faithfulness,
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hast provided;
Great is thy faithfulness,
Lord unto me.
2. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. [Refrain]
3. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine and ten thousand beside. [Refrain]
Offertory Prayer (Unison)
Holy One, our offering is an act of gratitude and a cry for our hurting world.
Bless us and what we offer – our money, our gifts, our time, our prayers –
and use all that we give for the sake of the world you love. In Jesus’ name
we pray. Amen.
Sung Blessing Christ Has No Body Now but Yours MV #171
Christ has no body now but yours. Here on this earth
yours is the work to serve with the joy of compassion.
through ev’ry gift give back to those in need:
as Christ has blessed, so now be his blessing,
Christ has no body now but yours. Here on this earth
yours is the work to serve with the joy of compassion.
Sending Forth
A Time of Fellowship
© Music Reproduced with permission under License number A-605748,
Valid for: 26/10/2025 - 25/10/2026; One License - Copyright Cleared Music for Church
5
Message: The Birds of Worry
ln the collection of teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says:
"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life...
Now personally, I think that trying to stop worrying is like trying to stop Niagara Falls.
No matter how hard you try to turn your mind off,
your thoughts keep flowing and flowing and flowing.
Four in the morning is my usual time for worrying -
the time when I think about my great niece who is struggling after the death of her mother,
the time when I wonder if my will is up-to-date,
or about what will happen if either Mary Margaret or I get ill or develop dementia.
And worrying at 4:00 am ties my stomach in knots,
prevents me from sleeping.
and brings to mind every worst-case scenario possible
An ancient Chinese proverb says:
"that the birds of worry are flying over your head, this you cannot change,
but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent."
ln light of this proverb, I now think that Jesus wasn't so much
telling us not to worry, as he was telling us to trust God in such a way that
the birds of worry don't make nests in our hair.
When he says, "Look at the birds of the air,
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them," he's saying, God provides for you.
When he says, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these,"
he's saying, God has made you beautiful and cares for you.
In the big picture of life, Jesus is saying, nothing is beyond God's care.
Forgiveness is more powerfulthan resentment.
Those who mourn are comforted. Those who worry are guided.
Jesus died and Christ is alive - light in our darkness, Spirit of strength,
and those who worry are empowered to act.
We are not alone, so we can lean our lives on the faithfulness of God,
and know that there is an abundance in the Universe
beyond what we can think or imagine.
Trusting in this overflowing, ever-available Love is the way
we keep birds of worry from nesting in our hair,
and it's on the foundation of the trust that "nothing can separate us from the love of God,"
that we can build practices to deal with our day to day worries.
Even Jesus doesn't expect us not to worry.
What he does say is, "Don't worry about tomorrow
Today has enough worries of its own."
6
Throughout our lives, there will be worries -
conflict in a relationship, a doctor's appointment,
upcoming surgery, moving, signs of memory loss,
our financial situation, putting food on the table -
but we can't deal with these worries ahead of time -
and especially not at 4:00 in the morning.
We can only confront these worries in the day time,
and it's by addressing them in the moment,
that we prevent the birds of worry from nesting in our hair.
Today we can do something concrete about our worries -
make an appointment with the doctor and find out what's going on,
update our will,
reach out to someone in order to mend a relationship,
make a budget, seek financial advice.
Along with practical actions,
we can also try what Edith Armstrong does to keep worry at bay. She writes:
"l keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance
[That way], whenever doubt, anxiety and fear try to call me,
they keep getting a busy signal, and soon, they'll forget rny number."
Another idea is to keep a worry box.
Over time, identify the things you worry about that you can control and write them down
Prioritize your top 20 concerns and keep these on cards in your worry box.
Set aside time each day to deal with these worries by thinking of possible solutions,
and then act on them.
The key in doing this is to take the energy out of worrying and put it into doing.
The key is to change worrying into thinking of solutions,
and then putting those ideas into positive action.
Other ways of dealing with worry are to cut out caffeine and alcohol,
to shift our world by reading a book, watching TV, going to a movie or listening to music.
Yet other ways are to talk to someone; to do creative something with our hands;
to hug our pet, our partner, children or grandchildren.
On the blades of a kayak paddle in the Millpond Restaurant it says:
"Paddle more, worry less."
And I can personally attest that this is true -
and that any exercise is a great worry reducer.
Another practice that helps with worrying is mindfulness -
being present in each day as it comes -
not living in the past, regretting,
or in the future, worrying, but in the only moment we have - this moment
7
Perhaps greet each day with the Salutation to the Dawn as many of us did at summer
camp.
Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life.
ln its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our existence:
the bliss of growth, the glory of action,
the splendour of beauty.
For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision,
but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
Another way to stop worrying about things we can do nothing about
is to get outdoors, or, if you can't do that physically,
to imagine yourself in a beautiful place in creation that is special to you
That's how American poet Wendell Berry deals with worry. He wrote
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives might be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with fore-thought
of grief. I come into the presence of still waters
and I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
This poem, I think, echoes the teaching of Jesus.
God out and ponder the wildflowers. See their beauty
Look at and listen to the birds of the air.
See how God clothes for the lilies and the asters,.
See how God cares for the sparrows and the juncos
the goldfinches and the pileated woodpeckers.
Trust in God's love and care for youl
ln the presence of water and wind, trees and flowers, sun and stars,
know the presence and peace of the Holy One.
Rest in God's grace in creation and be free.
When we learn to trust this unfailing goodness and presence of the Holy One ,
we may be able to see what Mary Oliver saw and do what she did:
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
May we each sing and rejoice, for we are not alone.
God is with us to stop the birds of worry from nesting in our hair
Thanks be to God.
