All Saints Day occurs on November 1 in the church calendar. Christians celebrate our honored dead have ascended from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant. This Sunday Northside Church will recall our members who have died during the past year. We will read the names, light candles, and toll bells in their sacred memory.

The United Methodist Book of Worship includes a powerful prayer in A Service of Death and Resurrection. Prayerfully consider the words.

O God, who gave us birth,

You are ever more ready to hear than we are to pray.

You know our needs before we ask, and our ignorance in the asking.

Give to us now your grace that as we shrink before the mystery of death,

We may see the light of eternity.

Speak to us once more your solemn message of life and of death.

Help us to live as those who are prepared to die.

And when our days here are accomplished,

enable us to die as those who go forth to live.

So that living or dying, our life may be in you,

And that nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us

From your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

AMEN!