Worship
March 2024 – Call and Benediction
Call to Worship Psalm 100:1-5, A Psalm for giving thanks Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness…
February 2024 – Call and Benediction
Call to Worship Psalm 136:1-3 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.2 Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; Psalm 136 is unique in the book of Psalms in that it contains a refrain, repeated after every line. This kind of structure implies that it was originally intended to by sung antiphonally – with the leader singing the…
Beginnings and Endings
When novelists write, they labor over the first and last sentences. You probably know some of these already. Dickens started off A Tale of Two Cities with the now famous line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Orwell ended his prescient work 1984 with the ominous line, “He loved big brother.” There’s also a reason (nearly) every Christian knows Genesis 1:1 by heart. Beginnings and endings frame everything in between. All I need to…
January 2024 – Call and Benediction
Call to Worship Psalm 147:1-6 Praise the Lord!For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.4 He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.6 The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground. This is…
Order of Service
Dear GCC, as you come to church this week you’ll notice a change to our order of service, namely, the beginning of our service will look like this: Announcements Call to Worship Prayer of Worship So why are we making this change? It’s not just to ‘shake things up’ or ‘try something new.’ Rather, it’s for practical and theological reasons. Practical Reason The practical reason is that announcements can be disruptive – right after a song of heartfelt worship, instead…