Guide for Home Worship

August 23, 2020

Welcome

Thank you so much for joining us! The following page will take you through the order of worship for this Sunday.

If you are new, welcome! We also want to invite you to learn more about us. You can do so by selecting the button below.
A few tips for parents:
  • Plan for your time – read through the guide and prepare the room where you are gathering
  • Make your time joyful – have fun!!!
  • Remember, it’s primarily about a relationship, not a task to scratch off
  • Have your kids participate in age and maturity appropriate ways – reading, singing, etc.

Time of Reflection

“God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has already bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them…. [Therefore] we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), pastor-theologian, martyred by the Nazis

“The big deal is we think the power is in us individually; the power is in us collectively. It is the church.”
~John M. Perkins, Christian minister and civil rights activist

“The cross reconciles men to God and men to each other.”
~Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor and writer

“True repentance is the result of an accurate understanding of the significance and gravity of sin, coupled with an overwhelming desire for the remission of that sin through the person and work of Christ and turning from sin and dead works to faith and obedience.”
~Voddie Baucham, Dean of Theology at African Christian University (Zambia)

“The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.”
~Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), novelist and essayist

“Saints cannot exist without a community, as they require, like all of us, nurturance by a people who, while often unfaithful, preserve the habits necessary to learn the story of God.”
~Stanley Hauerwas, theologian, ethicist, public intellectual at Duke University

“We can’t weep with those who weep…if we don’t know their stories. Learning about them helps us guard against self-centeredness.”
~Trillia Newbell, writer and activist

“Our communion with God lies in his giving himself to us and our giving ourselves and all that he requires to him. This communion with God flows from that union which is in Christ Jesus.”
~John Owen (1616-1683), pastor, theologian and Oxford academic

Opening Prayer

(select someone from your group to open your service in prayer)

Call to Worship

Nehemiah 9:5-6 (NIV)

LEADER: Stand up and bless the Lord your God who is from everlasting to everlasting!

CONGREGATION: Blessed be Your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

LEADER: You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them.

CONGREGATION: You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship You.

Songs & Liturgy

(sing as a group and/or sing along to recorded versions)
LET US LOVE AND SING AND WONDER
(John Newton 1774, Laura Taylor)
Let us love and sing and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mt. Sinai’s flame.

Let us love the Lord who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by His grace and taught us,
Gave us ears and gave us eyes.

He has washed us with His blood,
He has washed us with His blood,
He has washed us with His blood,
He presents our souls to God.

Let us wonder grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more.

He who washed us with His blood,
He who washed us with His blood,
He who washed us with His blood,
Has secured our way to God.

Let us praise and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted him before us,
Now their praises fill the skies.

He has washed us with His blood,
He has washed us with His blood,
He has washed us with His blood,
He presents us whole to God.
©2001 Laura Taylor Music CCLI License #1791178
RESPONSIVE READING
Adapted from Ephesians 4

LEADER: Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

CONGREGATION: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.


LEADER: There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;

CONGREGATION: One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

LEADER: As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

CONGREGATION: Rather, we are to speak the truth in love; we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,

LEADER: From Christ the whole body is fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,

CONGREGATION: And from Christ we have the proper working of each individual part, causing the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN
(William Cowper, 1772)
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away:
Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved, to sin no more:
Be saved, to sin no more,
Be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved to sin no more.
E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die:
And shall be till I die,
And shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
PUBLIC DOMAIN

Sharing

(as a lead into the Prayer Time, as a group share how you are feeling and what you are learning; below are suggested questions)

Prayer Time

(You may have an open time of prayer or select someone to pray)

  • Pray for our nation – that the good news of Jesus Christ would draw people to know God genuinely and personally.
  • Pray for those suffering from the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.
  • Pray for those experiencing racial injustices; specifically, that God would bring hope, reconciliation, and restoration through the good news of His Son.
  • Pray for those in authority at every level in our country, that they would govern wisely and justly.

Listen to Sermon

“The Beauty of Unity: Part 2″
preached by Pastor Don Willeman

Confession of Faith

Adapted from the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) Question 60

LEADER: How are you righteous before God?

CONGREGATION: Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ;

So that, though my conscience accuse me,
that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God,
and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all kinds of evil;

Notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace,
grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness
and holiness of Christ;

Even so, God views me as if I never had committed any sin:
indeed, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience
which Christ has accomplished for me;
Inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a trusting heart.


LEADER: Indeed! This is the good news that frees you to truly love God and serve others.

Sharing Time

(have everyone share one thing that struck them from the sermon)

Song

(sing as a group and/or sing along to recorded versions)
ON JORDAN’S STORMY BANKS
(Christopher Miner, Samuel Stennett, 1787)
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie.

All o’er those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day
There God the Son forever reigns
And scatters night away.

CHORUS:
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound for the promised land.

No chilling winds nor pois’nous breath
Can reach that healthful shore
Sickness, sorrow, pain and death
Are felt and feared no more.
(CHORUS)

When shall I reach that happy place
And be forever blest
When shall I see my Father’s face
And in His bosom rest.
(CHORUS)
©1997 Christopher Miner CCLI #1791178

Benediction

(The leader or individual should read this aloud relishing in the confident assertion that Christ has conquered.)

Luke 12:29-32

LEADER: Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

PEOPLE: Amen!