Sunday Service - October 4th 2026 - First Presbyterian Church of Cooperstown

October 4, 2026, 10:00 a.m.

World Communion Sunday - Feast of St. Francis

Preaching: Rev. Jess Lambert

Sermon: “Even a Cup of Cold Water”

Liturgist: Emily Craig

Bulletin: https://www.cooppres.org/s/October-4-2026-J-Lambert.pdf

Full Service: https://youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?feature=share

Scriptures:

Ezekiel 47:9, 12

Matthew 10:1-4, 40-42

World Communion Offering 2026 Micah 6:8 Love Kindness

https://vimeo.com/1215798957

Cover Art: World Council of Churches - Season of Creation 2026 https://seasonofcreation.org/

Please contribute to our ministry and good works in this community and around the world

https://www.CoopPres.org/donate

Feel free to submit Joys and Concerns prior to the live stream at

https://www.cooppres.org/joysconcerns

We will make every effort to read them during the service.

Our Website: https://www.CoopPres.org

From Pastor Jess:

Below is a prayer for these times. I heard it, adapted it and added to it. It was prayed by my friend Christa, who serves as Bishop of the New Jersey Synod, ELCA. She and many other interfaith clergy and advocates gathered in peaceful protest, as they do every Sunday evening, at the for-profit detention center in Elizabeth, NJ, Delaney Hall. After this and other prayers, there was a weaving ritual. Those gathered wrote the names of detainees they know and love on ribbons, and all of the ribbons were woven together and hung on a barbed wire fence surrounding the facility. May we all strive to not just know the circumstances of others’ suffering, but the names as well as their stories.

Tender and faithful God, sometimes the sorrow of the world feels too close to carry and too large to name. We see the grief in one another’s faces, the fear people bring quietly into church, the weariness hidden beneath ordinary conversations, and the ache of those who wonder whether anyone truly sees them.

Draw us nearer.

Give us the courage to notice the tears before we reach for words. Teach us to sit beside those who are frightened, grieving, displaced, lonely, angry, or simply worn thin by life. Keep us from offering easy hope when what your people need first is presence.

When we become distracted by our own plans, turn our faces again toward the people at the door. When we are tempted to protect what is familiar, remind us that Jesus is often waiting for us beyond the places where we feel secure. When our hearts grow tired, make them tender again.

Help your Church become a place where people can breathe, where the wounded are treated gently, where truth can be spoken without cruelty, where every human being is received with dignity, and where love is more than something we proclaim. And when we do not know what to say, teach us simply to remain.

Remain beside the grieving.

Remain beside the frightened.

Remain beside those whose lives have been pushed to the margins.

Remain until strangers become neighbors, until suffering has a name, until compassion becomes action, until hope begins to feel possible again.

Jesus, you wept with your friends before you called Lazarus from the tomb. Teach us that kind of love, a love willing to weep before it speaks of resurrection.

Make us gentle enough to touch the tears of this world, courageous enough to stand where love asks us to stand, and humble enough to trust that our future rests finally in your hands.

Hold us, God, and hold all those whose names and burdens we carry in our hearts this day.

Then send us out again, softer, braver, and more willing to love.

Through Jesus Christ our Beloved. Amen.

I will have partial Office Hours on Tuesday, 10/6, from 9-1, and then on Wednesday, 10/7 from 9-3.

I will be out of town from Thursday, 10/8- Monday, 10/12.

Faith will preach on 10/11.

Rev. Jess Lambert

https://www.cooppres.org/pastor-message

This Weeks Service: https://www.cooppres.org/livestream

Permission to reprint, podcast, and/or stream the music in this service obtained from OneLicense.com with license #A-724436. All rights reserved.

Scenes From Service - October 4th 2026

From Cooperstown First Presbyterian Church

World Communion Sunday - Feast of St. Francis

Preaching: Rev. Jess Lambert

Liturgist: Emily Craig

Bulletin: https://www.cooppres.org/s/October-4-2026-J-Lambert.pdf

Full Service: https://youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?feature=share

Sermon “Even a Cup of Cold Water” https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=zeH8XO2r3fMZlVKy&t=1262

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Joys and Concerns https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=lO8xXMba_BAjsrjO&t=2670

Communion https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=Am3x7zLT_VeOAPod&t=3110

‍ ‍

Blessing for Richard and Anne Blabey https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=q5C1M398w5_mShNB&t=3865

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Musical Performances:

“A Universal Blessing”

Alice Parker (1925-2023)

© Copyright 2013 by E.C. Schirmer Music Company, Inc.,

a division of ECS Publishing

All rights reserved.

The Chancel Choir

https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=xL5_ApIB8kWeMTTZ&t=858

Offertory

“Gigue from Sonata in D minor”

Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768)

Suzuki Violin School Copyright © 1971 by Zen-On Music Company, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Simon Craig, violin

https://www.youtube.com/live/dWdqz17_4lk?si=O9DizKVB42nAoiTZ&t=2282

Cover Art: World Council of Churches - Season of Creation 2026 https://seasonofcreation.org/

Please contribute to our ministry and good works in this community and around the world

https://www.CoopPres.org/donate

Preaching Sunday, October 11th 2026

Rev. Faith Gay

Sermon: "Poetic Navigation"

Scriptures:

Exodus 32: 1-14

Matthew 22: 1-14

Hymns:

Great Is Thy Faithfulness, #39

Arise Your Light Is Come, #744

What A Fellowship, What A Joy Divine, #837

Visit us online at: www.CoopPres.org

Permission to reprint, podcast, and/or stream the music in this service obtained from OneLicense.com with license #A-724436. All rights reserved.