Freelton Strabane United Church
To live our discipleship with integrity and grace.
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, November 9 2025
Remembrance Sunday
Minister: Rev. Will Wheeler, B.A. M. Div. 905-659-3380 E-mail: [email protected]
Music Director Joan Simpson
Announcements
Gathering
Three things I promise Holy God,
In age and youth, in life and death:
To bless your Name and cling to Christ
And listen for the Spirit’s breath.
Call to Worship
One: This is a day of remembrance
All: reembrace and more
One: this is a day of tears
All: tears and more
One: This is a day for our Country
All : our country and more
One: This is a day for all of those that served and serve in our Military
All: : And more
One: This is a day to remember and cry, for our country and all countries for our people and all people for our soldiers and all soldiers.
All This is a day for us to recommit ourselves to Justice, to recommit ourselves to peace
One This is a day as is every day—
All that we must never forget
One in our remembering and in our living Let us worship God.
Prayer of Approach
Lord Jesus, you have called us to be your disciples and entrusted to us your kingdom. Knowing ourselves and our limitations, we are amazed that you have put such great trust in us and in our ability to be faithful to you. Lord, make us more faithful. Renew in each of us the conviction that we are your representatives, your ambassadors in the world. Enable us so to live our lives that others might look at us and see your kingdom taking form through our lives. We hear and believe the gospel. Your Son Jesus Christ has delivered us from sin and You, have entrusted us with the love that restores our souls. May we continue to strive to live the great commandment
Poems of reembrace
Aftermath Pte Frank
Aftermath
by Pte. Frank
With Desolation and the Stars
I lonely vigil keep,
Over the garner'd fields of Mars,
Watching the dead men sleep —
Huddled together, so silent there.
With bloodless faces and clotted hair,
Wrapped in their long, long sleep!
By uptorn trees and crater rims
Along the Ridge they lie,
Sprawled in the mud, with out-spread limbs,
Wide staring at the sky.
Why to the sky do they always stare,
Questioning heaven in dumb despair?
Why don't they moan, or sigh?
Why do I rave, ‘neath the callous stars,
At their upturned faces white?
I, surely I, with my crimson scars
Slumber with them this night!
Death, with shadowy finger bare,
Beckons me on to — I know not where;
But, huddled together, and freed from care
We'll watch till the dawn of Light.
From the Somme,
1916
REMEBRANCE
One: They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.
All: At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.
The Last Post
Minute of Silence
Piper’s Lament
Reveille
In Flanders Fields Word’s by John McCrea Strabane
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
One Eternal rest grant unto them, O God, and may perpetual light shine down upon them.
All: May their souls through your mercy rest in peace
Prayer
God of many names, we pray for peace with ourselves in our relationships, in our communities in our world. May we be empowered to do the work of peace wherever we may find ourselves so that you may work through us. We pray for all those that have served and all those that are serving. We honour the memory of those that so willingly said yes when called by their country and never came home. We honour those that so willing said yes and came home broken souls. Grant us your presence in this time of remembrance, give us courage to seek peace, to speak of justice and willingness to work towards healing a broken world. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen
National Anthem 524
One Come people of God and know inspiration of the Spirit
All We come as a people of God to know the Spirit in words of the Apostles
One Let us listen to the word of God.
All our ears are open
One Our Epistle for the morning is taken from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,13-17
One This is the word of the Lord
All Thanks be to God
One: Let us listen to the good news of the gospel our Gospel is taken from Luke 20-27-38
One: This is the Gospel of our Lord
All Thanks be to God
Prayer
Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen
Sermon
I was telling a couple of folks before worship last week about looking for a photo. We all know there is no shortage of photos on my computer, but this one was in a book. Yes an actual printed photo that I needed for the website. Then I had one of those moments when you think “for a smart guy you can be pretty dumb.” You can just scan the photo into your computer. It was from my first trip to Isreal, and we had gone to Jericho. I took a picture of the tree from last weeks sermon. However, in looking for this photo I found a book that photos from our mission trip to Mexico. Let’s talk about memories. There is so much value in remembering and telling our stories. I can remember hearing a quote years ago. It still rings true. “We have subcontracted our memory to our digital devises” and I think we are paying the price.
How much of our memories, our special moments are stored on a phone and computer.
Our own faith story in the beginning was all oral. It took a couple hundred years before people started to write the story of Jesus.
Think on moments of being with family and sharing stories and remembrances.
Our memories are the building blocks of our past and our history
Last week at Freelton Strabane Anniversary I talked to the children about memories. What their favorite memory might be, shared some of mine and talked about how our memories become part of our story. Our Story can become part of our heritage and our history. I pretty sure that it is well known now that I have a passion for history. I think there is a subtle difference between past and history. Both of them can be complicated.
History in many ways is more fact based however there is always the complication about who is writing the history. There is the old saying “to victor goes the right to write the history.” This can come with a strong bias to one side.
Where History is hopefully more fact based, talking about our past, I think, comes from and with more of an emotional stand point.
The “past” is more based on our memory of events. Memories can get clouded with time and complicated by emotion.
I am pondering if the middle ground between History and the Past is what grows into our heritage.
In the past I remember, when Remembrance Day was a day off school a true day of remembrance. I remember little squares of red and green tissue paper wrapped around a pencil dipped in glue and stuck to a paper wreath for the remembrance service each class laying a wreath.
I only now realize that a teacher sat up to midnight cutting those squares so we could be part of a remembrance.
The History of Wars and conflicts are well written.
What we have inherited is the memory how our involvement in history. It is apart of our heritage.
The memories of the wars that have been waged are kept alive in the sharing of those stories, poems images of what it was to serve a country.
The stories of the first and second world war, Korea and police action of Vietnam but also the stories of the Holocaust, the Japanese internment in Canada the treatment of Jewish refugees, are all stories that need to be told to preserve that memory.
When the stories are forgotten then truly the sacrifices were in vain.
I heard a saying once that as long as our name is spoken, as long as our story is told we cannot die.
The heritage of Freelton Strabane lies within these walls. As long as we remember those that have been a part of our journey our heritage is secure. Each time We tell a story about Bill and Audrey Kerr, or Ann Wright or Joan McConikie, Each time we tell a story about Glen and Murial Hamilton or Anna Maltby or Cec and so so many more I could name. we are keeping our Heritage alive.
Each time recount a Supper served, a wedding performed a Christmas Eve, or Easter celebrated We keep our Heritage alive. Our History or Past become our inheritance of heritage. You are the keepers of our Heritage. You are what make Freelton Strabane Freelton Strabane a community of faithful.
There is no going back. History is history, I think the scripture reminds us that we must take that History, hold it and use it to move forward. To strive in answering our call to be followers of Christ and living good to seek justice and resist evil. May we remember an honour those that have served. May we hold Jesus’s words in our mouth. For they are like angels. They are God’s Children, since they are Children of the resurrection. We are God’s children, and we will tell our story and hold the stores of our God in Christ in our mouth as long as our story is told it cannot die You are our History, our hope, our tomorrow. You are the keepers of our heritage more so you are the keepers of the faith. Our memories become our stories and it’s our stories, big or little, that connect us. God in the Holy Spirit are with us guiding us in writing our story reminding us that we are not alone. Thanks be to God.
Prayers of the people
One Eternal God, conceiver and shaper, ruler and Saviour of the world, we bless you that, awake and aware we are free to praise you. Bound in the family of Christ to worshippers in every land, We praise your name for gifts given. We offer prayers of thanksgiving that we are a part of your holy family called to serve in your world.
Liberate all who follow Christ from narrowness of vision and limited discipleship. Make your people keen to serve you in the public worlds of business, politics, education, law , industry, and wherever the welfare of humanity may be improved. May our hearts be open to the leading of your spirit and may you hear our prayers for the world in which we live. Through out this day, throughout this week. Enliven our minds, inspire our conversation, inform our decisions, and protect those we love, and should today bring what we neither anticipate nor desire, increase our faith and decrease our pride until we know that, when we face the unexpected, we do not stand alone. Lord we offer you our own private prayers spoken in the silence of our hearts…..Hear these prayers made in the presence and in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Lord’s Prayer
Offering
We give thee but thy own. The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work. Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse. Let us make our offering and give thanks.
One: Praise God who from all Blessing flow
Take this moment, sign and space, take my friends around; here among us make the place where your love is found
Take the time to call my name, take the time to mend who I am and what I’ve been, all I’ve failed to tend.
Take the tiredness of my days, take the past regret,
Letting your forgiveness touch all I can’t forget.
Take the little child in me scared of growing old’
Help me here to find my worth made in Christ’s own mold.
Take my talents, take my skills, take what’s yet to be
Let my life by yours and yet let it still be me.
Amen
(John Bell and Graham Maule)
Commissioning and Blessing
One: From our history we have come to our present with hope for tomorrow.
All: We have found Hope renewed to be the disciples of Christ in the world
One Go now once more into the world to be those disciples called to plant the seeds of love, hope, and future of this congregation of God.
Go now in Peace
One May God the one who brings us comfort surround you, May Christ our Joy walk with you. May the Continued presence of The Holy Spirit illuminate our path and keep us safe until we can gather again in community. Amen
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
Upcoming Events
For all the people that have worked so hard this past year as we moved and lived into the Amalgamation thank you so much. Truly this has been the work of God. As we move into the summer we pray that people find restful times and stillness for the soul.
