As we move through February, we continue the “Be People of Prayer” series. This past Sunday, Valentine’s Day, we took a little different approach to the topic of prayer. Focusing on passages in 1 Peter 3:1-7 and Matthew 18:19-20, we took a look at the value of husband’s and wives praying together and how the relationship between the two can impact the effectiveness and vitality of the prayer life in a home.
The service as a whole was a great time together of remembering and celebrating Jesus. We sang, prayed, heard Scripture, and did communion together. Click through for more details…We began the service with welcome and announcements and brief spotlight on an upcoming community missions conference called SEEDS.
We then moved to a call to worship designed to remind people of why we do the call to worship (to remember why we have gathered to worship, who God is, and that we have gathered to worship Him) and read from Isaiah 43:19-21.
We then began to sing. We sang As Is Is in Heaven (Maher/Cash), Jesus Messiah (Tomlin/Carson/Cash/Reeves), and Holy Holy Holy (Heber/Dykes). We read some Scripture between Jesus Messiah and Holy Holy Holy. As It Is in Heaven has kind of become a theme song for this particular series for us. We’ve done it quite a bit, but it is still fun to do, and is still well sung by the congregation.
After Holy Holy Holy we took just a moment to be silent and reflect on the Lord, and then moved into the time of offering. The offering also set up the message with a video from the Skit Guys about choosing the right card to express love. Check it out.
After the message, we invited folks to take a few moments to pray together. As they finished, we sang Before the Throne of God Above (Bancroft) together in preparation for communion. For communion, I moved the table out a little bit into the congregation instead of having it right next to the platform to try and subtly communicate a feeling of the table being in the midst of the community. There were actually some seats event with, and even in front of, the table. It was interesting to watch where people sat in relation to it. During communion, we did a song from Chris Tomlin called This Is Our God. It’s a great expression of who Christ is, and was sung well by my wife with the help of the worship team.
After communion we sang Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (Newton/Rees/Excell/Tomlin/Giglio) as a response before saying the Lord’s Prayer together as a benediction.
If you were there, it would be great to hear your thoughts and what was meaningful to you.
To find out what other churches did this past Sunday, check out other orders posted at The Worship Community.
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