Sunday Toolkit — 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 4th October 2026

1. Encouragement

Leading worship is a generous thing to offer — you’re standing up the front, holding space for other people’s grief, hope, boredom, distraction and everything in between, and doing it in front of everyone. That takes real courage, especially on a week when the reading itself is hard going. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to preach a perfect sermon or land on a neat answer. You just need to show up, read the words honestly, and trust the people in front of you to meet you halfway.

Whatever this Sunday holds for you, you’re not carrying it alone — this toolkit, the wider Church of the Trinity community, and four weeks of lead time are all in your corner. Take a breath, and know that “good enough and heartfelt” beats “perfect” every single time.

2. This Week’s Reading

Old Testament — Judges 11:29-40, Jephthah’s daughter. Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVUE).

“Then Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me… shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.’” (abridged, Judges 11:30-31)

New Testament — 2 Timothy 1:3-7, Lois and Eunice. Read on Bible Gateway (NRSVUE).

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” (abridged, 2 Timothy 1:5)

A gentle heads-up before you sit with this one: the Old Testament reading is genuinely one of the hardest in the whole Women’s Lectionary — a father makes a rash promise, and his daughter pays the price for it. It doesn’t need to be softened or explained away, and it’s okay to name that honestly with the congregation rather than rushing past it. The New Testament reading, by contrast, is one of the warmest few verses going — Paul telling young Timothy that the faith running through him came from his grandmother and his mother before him. Putting the two side by side isn’t an accident: one is about what gets taken away when the powerful don’t think about who’ll pay for it, and the other is about what gets carefully, lovingly handed down. There’s room in the service for either thread, or both.

3. What Richard’s Explored Before

Judges hasn’t come up in any of Richard’s sermons before — checked across every sermon log and a title search of all his old sermon files. This is genuinely new territory for Richard too, so there’s no back-catalogue to lean on here.

The 2 Timothy reading has been preached once, back in October 2023, in the week right after the Indigenous Voice referendum result. Richard actually set the Judges reading aside that day — telling the congregation there was already enough hard news in the world without adding to it — and instead used “Lois and Eunice” to talk about the long relationship between the Uniting Church and First Nations Christians, naming two respected elders, Uncle Ken and Auntie Denise, as the “grandmothers and mothers” of that faith being handed on. It’s a lovely precedent if you want to lean into the “faith passed down” angle rather than the harder Old Testament story.

In terms of where the last couple of Sundays have been heading: the two Judges readings before this one told the story of Deborah (leading and prophesying) and then Jael (the tent peg) — strong, resourceful women taking hold of dangerous moments. This week’s story doesn’t have that same ending. Jephthah’s daughter doesn’t get a victory; she gets two months in the hills with her friends, and a yearly remembrance. That shift is worth naming gently if you’re picking up the thread from recent weeks.

4. Resources

Good news here: Spill the Beans has a resource written specifically for this exact pairing of readings (Judges 11:29-40 and 2 Timothy 1:3-7) — worth asking Richard for a look at the shared folder, as it includes a full story-retelling script that could be read aloud rather than preached, if that shape suits the week. As always, the file itself isn’t linked here for copyright reasons — just ask if you’d like to see it.

Words for Worship and L3 didn’t turn up anything reliably matched to this specific week’s readings, so there’s nothing to point to there this time — worth flagging plainly rather than guessing at a connection that isn’t really there.

5. Songs

A song with real history behind it: “Christ Be Our Light“ (Bernadette Farrell) was sung the last time the congregation’s community heard this exact New Testament reading preached, back in 2023 — a strong, verified choice if the service leans toward the “faith handed down” side of the week.

For the Old Testament side, where there’s no usage history to check against, two options worth considering: “Sorrowing Song” (ATE 286, “Lord, hear my praying”) is a fitting, gentle lament for the daughter’s grief — no confident link found for this one, so it’s simply named rather than linked; and “For Everyone Born“ speaks to who belongs and who gets a seat at the table, which could sit well alongside the “faith for everyone, not just some” thread running through 2 Timothy.

As always, it’s worth double-checking with whoever’s leading music which of these the congregation already knows well and which would need a run-through first — neither of the Old Testament options has a confirmed “we’ve sung this before” history, so treat them as fresh options rather than familiar ones.

6. Weblinks

A curated pick from Richard’s own Websites I Use page — the ones most likely to have something useful on this week’s readings or themes:

Working Preacher — reliable, accessible commentary on both testaments, written for people preparing to lead worship.
Journey With Jesus — thoughtful, gentle weekly reflections, good for a softer entry point into a hard text.
Sacredise — liturgy and worship-planning ideas drawing on a similar progressive, inclusive tradition to ours.
Uniting Church List — a good hub of denominational lectionary resources if you want a broader spread.
One Man’s Web — Australian reflections with a progressive bent, worth a look for local flavour.
Progressive Christianity — weekly liturgy ideas from a values-aligned network.

7. Pop Culture

Five songs for the lead-up to Sunday (never quote the lyrics in worship, just listen and let them sit with you):

This Is to Mother You — Sinéad O’Connor. A gentle, healing song about the kind of steady, unconditional love that gets passed from one generation to the next — a warm companion to the 2 Timothy reading.
Lullaby for Hugo — Nat Bartsch. A quiet instrumental piece, tender and protective — good for sitting with the vulnerability at the heart of this week’s Old Testament story.
If We Were Vampires — Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. A song about loving someone more fiercely because your time together is limited — echoes the two months Jephthah’s daughter is given with her friends before her fate arrives.
Ride On — Christy Moore. A quiet, well-loved folk ballad about holding someone gently before letting them go — leaves plenty of room for your own reflection rather than spelling anything out.
Naked as We Came — Iron & Wine. A tender, well-known song about loving someone through to the end and the promise that they’ll never be alone — a gentle way to sit with grief and love held together.

A book: Women in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Alice Bach — a collection of essays giving voice to women’s stories in the Old Testament that often get skipped over or flattened out, including the kind of story this week’s reading tells. It’s a deeper dive than most worship leaders will need, but a good one to have on hand if you want to go further than the toolkit alone.

A film: The Farewell (2019, dir. Lulu Wang) — a warm, gently funny, ultimately moving film about a Chinese-American family who gather around their beloved grandmother without telling her she’s terminally ill, and what it means to hold love, truth and family loyalty all at once across generations. It connects beautifully to the “faith handed down through grandmothers and mothers” side of this week’s New Testament reading. Content note: it deals with a terminal illness diagnosis and the family’s decision not to disclose it, handled with warmth rather than anything graphic or distressing.

8. Notable Dates

A few things worth knowing about in the ten days around this Sunday:

1 October — International Day of Older Persons. A UN day honouring older people and the wisdom they carry. It sits beautifully alongside this week’s New Testament reading — a lovely excuse to thank the elders in your own community, in the notices or in a prayer, for the faith and care they’ve handed down.
2 October — International Day of Non-Violence. Marked on Gandhi’s birthday, this UN day promotes peaceful ways of resolving conflict. Given this week’s Old Testament reading is, at its heart, a story about the cost of violence falling on someone powerless, it might be worth a single sentence of acknowledgement in the notices or prayers.
4 October — Clare and Francis of Assisi. Two of the best-loved figures in the whole Christian tradition, remembered for their simplicity, their love of creation and their care for the poor — Francis is even the Pope’s own choice as “Patron Saint of Ecology.” Lovely timing, too: this Sunday is the very last day of the global Season of Creation, so a short acknowledgement of the season closing would sit naturally here.
6 October — Helen Pearl Mackenzie. An Australian medical missionary who spent her life training women doctors in Korea after the Second World War, having followed her own missionary parents into that calling. A gentle, real-life echo of this week’s “faith handed down” thread — one generation’s care for others quietly shaping the next.

9. Final Word

With a reading this heavy, it can be tempting to either soften it until it barely says anything, or dive into every difficult detail. A middle path that tends to work well: name honestly, once, that the story is hard — then let the space you create (a candle, a moment of silence, a simple prayer) do more of the work than your words do. You don’t have to resolve what the text doesn’t resolve.

Whatever you choose to do with this Sunday, may you lead with an open heart and a steady voice, and may this community keep being known, as it always has been, for its faith, inclusivity and creativity. Go gently.