Prelude — Love Divine, All Loves Excelling (HYFRYDOL)
arr. Matthew Compton · Ringers on the Square
Charles Wesley’s hymn is, at its core, a prayer — an invitation for divine love to take up residence in the human heart. On this Children’s Sunday, that prayer arrives on bells — clear, bright, and unencumbered.
Introit — Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
arr. Arnold Sherman · Ringers on the Square
The line that stops everyone is the one Robert Robinson wrote about himself: “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it — prone to leave the God I love.” It’s the most honest thing a person can say at the beginning of worship.
Hymn of Praise — This Little Light of Mine
HPP #466, vv. 1, 2, & 3
This is an “I” song — and yet it has always been sung by crowds. That is the paradox at its heart: each light is singular, irreplaceable, entirely your own — and the only way to see it clearly is when everyone in the room holds theirs up at once.
Shine yours!
Interlude — Pure Imagination
Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley (1971) · piano
Written for the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the lyric makes the oldest mystic claim in the simplest possible language: “If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.” Children know this instinctively. The rest of us spend our lives trying to remember it.
Let this be a moment of remembering.
Anthem — Peace Like a River
HPP #394 · Sharon Nelson, dir.
Peace is a river, joy is a fountain, love is an ocean, and none of them are still. Peace was never a destination you arrived at and unpacked your bags — it was always a current, something you entered, something that carried you.
Step in and sing out!
Offertory — Bless the Beasts and Children
Barry DeVorzon & Perry Botkin Jr. · choir
DeVorzon stripped this song back to its simplest form: a prayer for those who cannot speak for themselves. As you bring your offering forward, let that be the question it carries — not just what you are giving, but for whom.
Communion — Children’s Songs
Chick Corea · piano
Corea wrote these miniatures over twelve years, one by one, with no grand plan. He said simply: “Children remind us of and give us back that spirit of freedom we all so dearly want. We are all basically that free — but often need the reminder.”
Come to the table and be reminded of that freedom.
Closing Hymn — He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
American spiritual · HPP #51, vv. 1, 4, & 5
This spiritual has been sung by children for as long as anyone can remember — and yet its claim is anything but small. The whole world, the wind and the rain, all of us together. We end Children’s Sunday here: not with a benediction, but with a declaration.
Postlude — Jesus Loves Me
Sharon Nelson, piano solo
Anna Bartlett Warner wrote these words as comfort for a dying child. William Bradbury set them to music, and somewhere along the way they became the first theological statement most of us ever learned. Today Sharon sends us out with a uniquely soulful rendition.