For the work of the church, we give you our thanks…
For the ministry of healing in hospitals and clinics and shelters…
For the serving of meals in soup kitchens all around the world…
For the drilling of wells and the installation of sewers…
For the teaching of children, for classrooms and libraries, for literacy and learning…
For the gift of tools that make the differently-abled more abled…
For the ministry of prayer…
For the hours of worship…
For the opportunity to see Christ in the stranger and the neighbor…
We give our thanks, and we share these gifts. Amen.
Posted by admin at 10:37 am on April 22nd, 2010.
Categories: Worship Bits.
God of past, present and future, author of time and keeper of eternity, help us look to the future with hope.
Often we are afraid to hope, afraid to dream, and our fears keep us from seeing the empty tomb, from hearing the proclamation of resurrection. Forgive us we pray.
Give us dreams and visions, hopes and confidence that dawn will always come after the darkness of night.
Though anchored in our humanness, remind us that we are created for heaven. Forgive the times we have doubted, the times we have hidden in the dark, the times we have not tried to make a difference.
God who cannot be contained in a tomb,
Call us to new life with the shout of Easter and let us live new lives in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Posted by admin at 2:46 pm on April 8th, 2010.
Categories: Worship Bits.
Almighty God, give us the joy of seeing resurrection all around us!
Let us experience Easter in the rising of the sun and the embrace of a friend once lost. Let us know new life in the ability to imagine and work for a better world to come. Let us believe that you are creating the world anew with every breath we take, with every child that is born, and with every word of love that is spoken. Let Easter be made real in each of our lives today, and empower us to proclaim the message of Easter through our worship with these people in this place. Amen.
Posted by admin at 2:06 pm on April 8th, 2010.
Categories: Worship Bits.
Good Friday Devotion:
Gazing at the Cross
Seward, Alaska
April 2, 2010
Anna is a child from my last church. Her mom shared this photo on Facebook last week. I guess Anna is about seven or eight years old and she’s a pretty lucky girl. She has two talented parents who love her very much… dad is a doctor, mom is an architect, but more of a stay-at-home mom while her kids are young. Anna lives in a nice home, with nice things, in a nice neighborhood and attends nice schools and a nice church. Her parents expose her to the world in appropriate and wonderful ways, and because Anna is a bright girl, she soaks it all in. This spring, her folks took her to Europe and she got to go to the Louvre. Anna’s a lucky girl.
So what does Anna see when she gazes up at a painting of the crucifixion? The painting is El Greco’s Christ on the Cross Adored by Donors, painted in the late 1500s. The photograph fascinates me… 21st century Anna gazes at a painting of two wealthy 16th century art patrons gazing at the first century carpenter that we call the Son of God. More… »
Posted by admin at 10:37 am on April 2nd, 2010.
Categories: Sermons, Worship Bits.
