We are delighted to welcome Parish Associate Rev. Jeff Kellam to our Pulpit on May 10! Jeff became a Presbyterian as well as a Presbyterian minister in our sanctuary, and has spent his retirement years in continuing service to our community. He is one of the hosts of the Broome County Council of Churches’ TV program, “Encounter,” and he hosts “Classic Vinyl Jazz” on WBDY, Binghamton Community Radio. He’s a great preacher, too!
You can join us in our beautiful sanctuary at 200 East Main Street in Endicott, NY. Or, you can join us online by clicking on the livestream, right here, on Sunday morning at 10:30. You are invited, and will be most warmly welcomed!
Easter 6: B. B. King’s Sermon in Song
Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21
Union Presbyterian Church
May 10, 2026
Sharing the Light of Christ, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Liturgist: Kevin Kelley Preacher: Rev. Jeff Kellam
Welcome
Announcements Kevin Kelley
Prelude Chris Bartlette
“Amazing Grace,” Bill Carter
@2004, Presbybop Music, All rights reserved.
Used by permission.
Call to Worship
We gather to celebrate the God of wonder and majesty!
Awesome God, help us to worship you in spirit and in truth.
We gather to celebrate Jesus Christ, who was dead and buried, and now risen indeed!
Jesus, renew our hope in your great power and love.
We gather to celebrate the Holy Spirit, our promised comforter and guide!
Come Holy Spirit! Fill us with your presence and peace.
We gather to celebrate the ancient hope of Christians:
God is with us and will never let us go.
* Hymn # 366
“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”
(Public Domain)
Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down,
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion;
Pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.
Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit
Into every troubled breast;
Let us all in thee inherit;
Let us find the promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.
Come, Almighty, to deliver;
Let us all thy life receive;
Suddenly return, and never,
Nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve thee as thy hosts above,
Pray, and praise thee without ceasing,
Glory in thy perfect love.
Finish then thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
* Call to New Life
The proof of God’s amazing love is this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us. Because we have faith in Christ, we dare to approach God with confidence. In faith and humility, let us confess our sins before God and one another.
* Prayer for Wholeness and Peace
Ever-present God, we come before you knowing we have ignored your promised Holy Spirit living within us. Therefore, we forfeit peace and bear needless worry. We become confused and deaf to your voice of truth. We struggle with obedience to your Word and fight an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Forgive us! Help us to remember that we are never alone, that you are with us and for us, by the power of your Spirit abiding in us, the Spirit of Jesus the Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
* Assurance of God’s Love (Romans 8:31-32)
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Believe the good news of the gospel:
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven and made free. Alleluia! Amen.
* Sharing of the Peace
The peace of God is available to you right now.
May the peace of our loving God be with you.
And also with you.
Let us offer one another a sign of God’s peace.
Scripture Acts 17:22-31 (NRSVUE)
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For
‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we, too, are his offspring.’
“Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Time for Young Disciples Rev. Jeff Kellam
Music: “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less”
(Public Domain)
Anthem Choir
“O Healing River,” Mark Hayes
@2016, Hope Publishing Company, All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE.
License #A-728112. All rights reserved.
O healing river, send down your waters.
Send down your waters upon this land.
O healing river, send down your waters,
And wash the blood from off the sand.
This land is thirsting. This land is parching.
No seed is growing in the barren ground.
This land is thirsting. This land is parching.
O heal us now, send your waters down.
Let the seed of freedom awake and flourish.
Let the deep roots nourish. Let the tall stalks rise.
Let the seed of freedom awake and flourish,
Proud leaves uncurling against the skies.
O healing river, send down your waters.
Send down your waters upon the land.
O healing river, send down your waters,
And wash the blood from off the sand,
And wash the blood from off the sand.
O healing river, come heal our land.
Scripture John 14:15-21 (NRSVUE)
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Response Holy Wisdom, Holy Word:
Thanks be to God!
Sermon “B.B. King’s Sermon in Song” Rev. Jeff Kellam
* Affirmation of Faith Philippians 4:4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.
Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things…
and the God of peace will be with you.
* Hymn # 766
“The Church of Christ Cannot Be Bound,” Adam M. L. Tice
@2005, GIA Publications, All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE.
License #A-728112. All rights reserved.
The church of Christ cannot be bound
By walls of wood or stone.
Where charity and love are found,
There can the church be known.
True faith will open up the door
And step into the street.
True service will seek out the poor
And ask to wash their feet.
True love will not sit idly by
When justice is denied.
True mercy hears the homeless cry
And welcomes them inside.
If what we have we freely share
To meet our neighbor’s need,
Then we extend the Spirit’s care
Through every selfless deed.
The church of Christ cannot be bound
By walls of wood or stone.
Where charity and love are found,
There can the church be known.
Prayers of the People
The Lord’s Prayer (Ecumenical)
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Prayer Response # 587
“Alleluia!” Fintan O’Carroll, Christopher Walker
©1981, @1985, OCP, All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE.
License #A-728112. All rights reserved.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Call for Offering
* Doxology # 606
“Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”
(Public Domain)
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,
Praise God, all creatures here below:
Praise God above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
* Dedication of Offering
* Hymn # 693
“The Gift of Love,” Hal H. Hopson
@1972, Hope Publishing Company, All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE.
License #A-728112. All rights reserved.
Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain,
As sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.
Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control;
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship, and are freed.
Benediction
Postlude Chris Bartlette
“Joshua!” Roger Summers
@2004, Lorenz Publishing Co., All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE.
License #A-728112. All rights reserved.
Where an * is indicated, please rise in body and/or in spirit.
Liturgy taken and/ or adapted from a liturgy by the Rev. Tracey Davenport, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church, Plano, TX, and is provided courtesy of the Presbyterian Outlook Magazine.