No Other Gods: Litany, Communion Liturgy, & Sermon Starters
This worship resource offers a theologically grounded litany, Great Thanksgiving, and four-week sermon series framework for congregations reflecting on faithful discipleship, national identity, and the call to worship God above all else. Designed for the first Sunday in July and the broader America 250 context, the resource expands the meaning of “America” beyond the United States to honor the diverse peoples, lands, cultures, and histories of North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Centered on the theme “No Other Gods,” the resource invites congregations to examine idolatry as a daily discipleship issue—asking what competes with God for first place in our hearts, loyalties, resources, and public witness. Through prayer, Communion liturgy, and sermon starters, this resource helps churches celebrate God’s diverse creation, confess claims of superiority, remember displaced and erased peoples, and recommit their allegiance to the God of liberation, justice, and love.
Litany, Communion Liturgy
LITANY
One: The God of all creation – diverse and wonderfully made – has placed us in many parts of this wondrous world. We celebrate the many, varied homelands that are embodied in the name America – North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America!
All: We celebrate the differences among us – diverse cultures of North America: Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and the United States! Lord, in your mercy, free us from every claim of superiority, for all nations you have made shall come before you.
One: Scripture tells us that you, O God, are a God of equity. Since the foundations of the world in Genesis, Your Spirit has created and breathed life into diverse lands, animals, and peoples.
All: We celebrate the differences among us – diverse cultures and lands of the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Lord, in your mercy, free us from every claim of superiority, for all nations you have made shall come before you.
One: Your Spirit, O God, has created and breathed life into diverse lands, animals, and peoples.
All: We celebrate the differences among us – diverse cultures and lands in Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Lord, in your mercy, free us from every claim of superiority, for all nations you have made shall come before you.
One: Your Spirit, O God, has created and breathed life into diverse lands, animals, and peoples.
All: We celebrate the differences among us – diverse cultures and lands in South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Lord, in your mercy, free us from every claim of superiority, for all nations you have made shall come before you.
One: Your Spirit, O God, has created and breathed life into diverse lands, animals, and peoples. We also celebrate and remember those peoples and cultures who have been erased, displaced, claimed as territories, and whose people have been rendered stateless and placeless.
All: God of the stateless, placeless, erased, and displaced, forgive us for profaning peoples and lands You have called sacred. Work Your sanctifying love in us – a love that crosses lands and borders to honor and preserve the dignity and worth of God’s good creation.
Amen.
GREAT THANKSGIVING
One: The Lord of all nations, peoples, tribes, and lands be with you.
Many: And also with you.
One: We lift all of who we are, how God created us and the lands from which we come to you. Lift up your hearts.
Many: We lift them up to the Lord.
One: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
Many: It is right to give our thanks and praise.
One: It is right and a good and joyful thing to always give you glory and honor and praise, Lord of all nations, peoples, tribes, and lands! As the Great Artist, you created a diverse kaleidoscope of humanity breathing into us Your Spirit – the Breath of Life – forming us in your likeness and imprinting your image in each of us. Even when we chose to love lesser loves—gods of comfort, security, and power – Your great love kept being faithful to us. It was only You who delivered and liberated us from slavery to sin making a covenant by your grace to be our God, and never let us go. You have been faithful to us through the ages – even through failed leaders, government regimes, and presidencies. For this, and so much more that You alone have done, O Lord, with your creation in every land, nation, and place, we praise Your name and sing that forever song with all the company of heaven:
Many: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
One: Holy are you and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. Your Holy Spirit that broke out and filled humanity of every nation, tribe, culture, and language at that first Pentecost, that was present in the beginning of creation, is the same Spirit that anointed Jesus to preach the good news to the poor,
Shout “Be free!” to those enslaved by lesser loves,
Granting clarity to those who have lost their way,
Bringing liberation to those who are oppressed,
Announcing “The reign of God is here” simply by his presence and ministry.
Jesus showed us what faithful love and leadership looks like:
He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners calling them friends.
By Jesus’ baptism of suffering, death and resurrection, he gave birth to the church. Jesus demonstrated his allegiance to God by staying on mission, taking all humanity from slavery to sin and lesser gods, and making a new covenant with us by water and the Spirit.
On the night Jesus gave himself for us and the world, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Take, eat; this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
When the supper was over, Jesus took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
And so,
We remember your mighty acts in Jesus Christ and pledge our allegiance to you above all other things that compete for our worship, God of all nations and peoples.
We offer ourselves as holy and living sacrifices in union with what Christ has done for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
Many: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
One: God of all creation, pour out your Holy Spirit on all of us gathered here – made in Your image – and on these gifts of bread and cup. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we – diverse and wonderfully made – may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by Jesus’ blood.
By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church,
All honor, glory, and allegiance is yours, Almighty God, now and forever.
Amen.
Sermon Resource
“What we worship shapes who we become”
Week 1: The God Who Sets Us Free
Scripture: Exodus 20:1–7
Sermon Focus: God begins with grace before giving the commandment. The prohibition against other gods is rooted in relationship, not control.
Sermon Starter
Imagine someone walking into your home and rearranging all your family photos. Your spouse is moved to a corner shelf. Your children are placed behind decorative items. The people you love most are still present, but they are no longer central.
That's often how idolatry works. We don't always remove God from our lives—we simply move God from the center.
Before God ever says, "You shall have no other gods before me,’ God reminds Israel: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt." The commandment begins with liberation. God isn't demanding loyalty from strangers; the Lord is inviting faithfulness from people already rescued.
Ask yourself:
"What is the first thing you reach for when life falls apart?"
When the diagnosis comes...
When the relationship breaks...
When the future feels uncertain...
Where do you run first?
Our answer may reveal more about our gods than our theology does.
Week 2: Becoming What We Worship
Scripture: Psalm 115:3–11
Sermon Focus: Idols are powerless, and people become like what they trust.
Sermon Starter
Hold up a smartphone.
This little device can connect us to family, learning, and opportunity. It can also consume our attention, shape our desires, and tell us what matters. We unconsciously begin to mirror the people and things we spend the most time with. Friends adopt similar phrases. Couples develop similar expressions. Children imitate their parents.
We become like what we behold. The psalmist understood this long before modern psychology. Idols have mouths but cannot speak. Eyes but cannot see. Ears but cannot hear. And then comes the startling conclusion: "Those who make them will be like them."
Whatever captures our devotion ultimately shapes our character.
Week 3: The Table of Allegiance
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:14–22
Sermon Focus: Discipleship requires choosing which table shapes our lives.
Sermon Starter
Every family has a table story. Some tables are places of celebration.
Some are places where difficult conversations happen. Some are places where identity is formed. When you sit at a table regularly, you become part of that community.
Paul says Christians cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of idols. Why? Because tables represent belonging. Every table teaches us who we are and whose we are.
The question is not whether we belong somewhere. The question is which table is forming us. Also, take a look around the tables to which you belong, who is present? Who is absent? Who is included and who isn’t?
Week 4: Keep Yourselves from Idols
Scripture: 1 John 5:18–21
Sermon Focus: Faithfulness is not a one-time decision but a lifelong practice.
Sermon Starter
Many people imagine idolatry as a dramatic act of abandoning God.
But more often, idolatry happens slowly. One compromise. One misplaced trust.
One unchecked ambition. Until one day we discover that something else has taken God's place. John's closing words are not fearful; they are pastoral. They are the loving reminder of an elder saying to the church:
Stay close to Jesus. Guard your heart. Don't give away what belongs to God.
Series Closing Question for Every Week
Consider ending each sermon with the same discipleship question:
"What is competing with God for first place in my heart, my time, my social media posts, my resources, my money, etc?"
This question creates continuity across the entire series and allows the congregation to see idolatry not merely as a theological concept, but as a daily discipleship issue.