When Family Falls Apart

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Scriptures: Ruth 1:1-5

• Sermon Summary

  In the first sermon of our new series, Chosen Family: The Story of Ruth, Bobbi walks us through the tough, gritty prologue of the book of Ruth. Embedded in the chaos of the time of Judges, the story begins with famine, displacement, estrangement, and deep loss. Yet, Bobbi shows how the characters in Ruth are constantly doing their best and stepping toward hope through agency, strategic choices, and mutual care. Bobbi draws our attention to a God whose activity is often hidden and fortuitous, reminding us that loss does not define us and that our hard stories can loop into sacred circles of redemption.

• Discussion Guide

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share.
  These questions are just a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

  Connect: When you look back on a season where life felt like a "rocky beginning" or a period of unexpected transition, what was one small thing that helped keep you grounded?

  Share: Bobbi notes that estrangement, whether from family, a former home, or a community, is a deeply panful and personal reality that often comes out of desperation. She encouraged us—when thinking about examples of these challenging relationships in our lives—to consider adding an ellipsis, a “dot dot dot,” to the story. We don’t have to know what comes next, but simply leave the door open to possibility.
  What are your thoughts on this idea?
  How does the idea of adding eclipses to our difficult relationships, and our hopes of reconciliation, work together?

  Reflect: Bobbi highlighted a unique feature of the book of Ruth: the narrator only explicitly attributes an action directly to God twice in the entire book, meaning the main characters move forward without hearing direct divine voices, relying instead on their own agency, problem-solving, and strategic choices.
  How do you react to the idea that "you don't even need God to speak to be a part of God's good story"? Does viewing God's work as hidden and partnered with human effort comfort you, or does it challenge how you look for God in difficult times?

  Engage: Consider this quote from the sermon:

  "The next part of your story just might reflect the last hard part's true opposite... This to me is one of life's greatest gifts. That we get to make something new of what we've been given thanks to the hidden work of God in partnership with the deliberate work of our healing."

  What are your thoughts on this quote?
  How might this be easier to say or hope for, than to live out?

  Take away: What is one thing that you're taking with you into your week, either from the sermon or our conversation?

  Prayer
  Loving God, 
  We are grateful for the ways the stories of scripture 
  Don’t always colour inside the lines. 

  That in Ruth, we get this rocky beginning
  But we will find ourselves on a smoother path
  To a story of surprising belonging, tenacity, and redemption. 

  And still we know that there can be such fraught emotions and
  So many tangles when it comes to the families we come from, 
  Or the version of family we try to shape for ourselves.
  Won’t you remind us of the ways your grace works in all things.

  Spirit of the living God, present with us now, enter the places of our longing and our search for belonging, and heal us of all that harms us. 
  Amen.
  

• Service Songs & Prayers

  Worship Songs
  Curated by Alycia F.
  
  Mission House - Good God
  Maverick City Music - Jireh
  Common Hymnal - The Kingdom is Yours
  Hillsong Worship - Cornerstone
  
  Liturgy
  Written by Yelena Pakhomova

  As part of our worship today, I invite you to join me in a prayer of confession.

  “Confession is a prayer of return.”
  It is a reminder that we can change.

  And that Divine mercy is found in the totality of our lives and not only in those parts that we see as good and are happy to reveal to others. Confession is about a return to integrity and wholeness that can help us start anew.
  Let us pray.

  I.
  Our loving God,
  whose grace finds us in our darkest times and whispers,
  “This is not the end.”
  As we check in with our hearts today,
  we trust that same abundant grace will meet us
  and guide us with gentleness.
  Especially as we think about
  those moments of anger or harshness
  that we’ve allowed to boil over and spill to others,
  the moments of mindless distraction we’ve slipped into,
  and the ways we have not used our gifts.
  For all those times, we ask you to forgive us, and we pray:
  Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

  II.
  God of welcome,
  who always makes room to include more people at the table.
  We confess that often we’re not great at doing the same.
  For withholding our presence from somebody who needed us,
  for criticism, impatience, self-righteousness,
  for the lack of empathy and ignorance of someone’s pain.
  We ask you to forgive and renew us, and we pray:
  Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

  III.
  God of true peace,
  We confess our participation in the structures and institutions
  that thrive on inequality
  and, in pursuit of wealth, abuse your creation.
  We confess our slowness to learn,
  and our fear and suspicion that often stand
  in the way of relationship and reconciliation.
  We ask you to set us free from all fear
  so that we can follow you with courage, and we pray:
  Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.
  Now receive this affirmation:
  May you trust that you can never wander too far from grace.
  May God’s love and mercy always guide you home.
  Amen.