Sunday 18 October 2026
21st after Pentecost
Welcome!
Welcome to excerpts from the worship held within the newly formed Westhills Church of Scotland Congregation. We know that not all members of the congregation are able to be in church on Sunday morning; offering these excerpts from the Sunday morning service might help you feel included. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you.
If this post helps you explore what happens within an act of worship then please read on…
The Psalms
Psalm 99
Live recording
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
1 Thessalonians 1: 1 – 10
Live recording
Matthew 22: 15 – 22
Live recording
Praise – Lord Jesus Christ
Prayers
Live recording
Lord, we have been on a journey – this week past we have met people, been to places, done things; just all the stuff or ordinary living. We pray that we have left the imprint of Your love with the people we met, in the places we have been and expressed that love through the things we have done. Replenish us today with the fullness of Your Holy Spirit that we might continue on our journey.
Father God, we come into your presence reminded of your greatness, your holiness, your beauty and your immense love for us. You are the creator of life, the sustainer of the universe, of all that is and has been and shall be.
You are a God of justice and truth, righteousness and purity and yet we remember that you are also a God of love – a God who cares for each of us, bringing joy out of sadness, hope out of despair, light out of darkness, wholeness out of imperfection. Day by day you are with us at work in our lives and in our relationships.
Lord Jesus, we meet with You as part of this community of faith. We are sorry for the times when we have tried to go it alone and ignored those who have needed a friend, for not standing in solidarity with our neighbours, for ignoring Your will for our lives and theirs.
Lord forgive us and help us to put things right. Give us what we need this day so that we can share Your love with others and show them the way that is Christ.
Lord, today, be in our hearts and our thinking and as Jesus pointed out Caesar’s image on the coin, may we recognise that Your image is stamped upon our very souls. May we meet people every day and pass on that love and reassurance to them. Help us find ways of living faithfully in this world but never at the expense of our love for You.
Your gift to us of endless love and boundless grace is beyond all that we can imagine. Why should you set such love upon us? In the mystery of your divine love, we come with our gifts of love. We offer our very being to you, we offer the gifts of our time and skills and talents and all we ask is that they might be fitting gifts for a God as loving as You.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
Our Father who art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
Live recording
“Dust Catchers” that’s how I sometimes refer to them. All the ornaments that collect on shelves and windowsills, often enough they were gifts, seldom were they purchased just because they caught the eye. Are you familiar with Willow Tree Ornaments? I have some at home and they are peculiar. One portrays “Togetherness”, another “Friendship”, another one again “Welcome”; each is finished in neutral colours. Each is different yet they have one thing in common… there are no facial features. I’m never sure if that’s a clever artistic touch or something a bit odd and creepy!
In some way they remind me of Amish dolls, which famously have no facial features. The Amish as you might be aware live a very simple religious lifestyle. In origin they are Anabaptists, a Protestant movement of the 16th Century, who settled in Pennsylvania from Holland.
There are several accounts of the origins of faceless dolls used by Amish children. One account says that a young Amish girl was given a rag doll with a face for Christmas. Her father became upset and cut the head off the doll. He reportedly said, “Only God can make people.” He then replaced the head with a stuffed stocking that did not have a face. The little girl played happily with the doll for many years. Another theory claims that the dolls are left faceless because “all are alike in the eyes of God”, and that the lack of facial features agrees with the Bible’s commandment against graven images.
In the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy we hear the same command.
“Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth. “ Those words are first heard in Exodus 20:4, where they form the second of the Ten Commandments, received by Moses on Mount Sinai. And as we know, by the time Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, the people had made an image of a golden bull calf to worship!
No matter what era of human history you care to dip into humanity has been fascinated with images. Cave dwellers painted images of animals on cave walls, images have been carved into wood or cast in metals, we have put oils on canvas, water colours on paper, with just about every known material and technique we have expressed our creativity and made images.
But images go beyond creativity. We live in an image-obsessed world. The photographic image captures a moment in time, it is about memories and snap shots of happy moments on family holidays, images sell products in clever advertising, images makes us smile and weep, images reflect the beauty of creation, the horror of war, the sexual abuse of a child. Images reflect humanity in all our wonder and endeavour and equally confronts us with all our evil and corruption. No wonder we have an ambivalent relationship with images, we see too much of ourselves within them, too much that we would rather not see.
And yet, we remain fascinated by the creation of images. We would rather have the image than the reality. Too many reach for the smart phone desperate to capture the concert on video rather than be in the moment, experience it, be part of it. Sometimes the creation of an image causes us to stand apart and be detached from the very thing we are seeking to personally experience.
I doubt that Jesus had it any easier in his day. The Roman Empire stood for a thousand years and throughout that time the coins used as everyday currency bore the image of the Roman Emperor. That image spoke to the people of power, prosperity and stability, Pax Romanus – the Peace of Rome; though sometimes the reality was of brutality, military occupation and oppression. The Emperor was also a deity to be worshipped; allegiance to the Emperor was expressed across the empire by worshipping his image. In cultures that worshipped many gods the addition of the Emperor as a god was not a problem. But, the Jews could not accept this. For there is only one God and God is one. No Jew could worship the image of the Emperor.
For Jesus, the image of the Emperor on the Roman coin spoke of division, like the division we have between spiritual and physical, reality and image, divine and worldly. In some way Jesus’ reply about paying the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and paying God what belongs to God only emphasises that polarity and tension which we all live with but are never entirely comfortable with.
Through out the bible God remains something of a mystery to us. We are told that no one can look on the face of God and live. He is holy and other and beyond our comprehension, there is no image of him. And yet there is. In the Gospels we learn of the Christ, God’s son, fully God, in every way God. Not a picture of God but an image of God. And then there’s us; for “God created mankind in his image, male and female he created us, making us to be like himself” it says in Genesis 1. We are in his image. When people look at us, not our clothes or hairstyles or those superficial things, but at us as people, who we are, what we do and say and think, they might see an image of the nature of God, of Christ – the one who emptied himself of all but love. And maybe that leaves us with the haunting question… What image do people see when they look at us?
Praise – Open my eyes
Prayers for Others
Live recording
For an Image Conscious World
Lord Jesus we pray to you for an image conscious world where global corporations, and governments are so aware of their image, so anxious to know how people perceive them, yet the image they present too often covers up the truth. The politicians who creates an image of sincerity yet has no real integrity. We see images of perfect models on magazine covers and catwalks and wonder how this affects young minds and self-conscious girls to be something they cannot be. Images are powerful, images manipulate, images persuade. Lord hear us as we pray for an image conscious society that hides behind images so often pretending to be something it is not…
Cost of Discipleship
Baptised into Christ, Lord we share in your sufferings as much as we receive of your mercy and compassion. Lord we forget sometimes that the calling to be disciples of Christ carries a cost – there is sacrifice, there are demands made on our time and energies, responsibilities we will be asked to accept. Help us to respond gladly to whatever you may ask of us knowing that whatever the cost the reward is so much greater. The call to discipleship is ever present; we never stop being disciples; so, Lord, in these quiet moments allow us to hear your voice calling to us again, stirring our hearts, guiding our footsteps and inspiring us to be the image of Christ. Hear us as we pray…
Time for Our Own Prayers
In thanksgiving we approach you Lord, grateful for the stillness of your house and the privilege and freedom to come and worship you. We thank you for the gift of prayer. To speak to you and listen for you feeds our souls upon the things of heaven, we are nourished, strengthened, embraced. Lord, we gather our thoughts and tell you of the things that matter to us as individuals. We share with you our joys and sorrows…
Praise – O Happy Day
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.