Sunday Worship | June 21, 2020

Five Tests for the Faithful | Sunday Worship, June 21, 2020

Instructions: The words and videos below are meant to be read and played in sequence, together forming one complete worship service. Begin by pressing play on the first video.

God Bless!


Faith is a journey. One of those great family vacations where you bond with those you love, share once in a lifetime experiences, and see wonderful sights.

Also, where road construction diverts you sixty miles off course, the hotel loses you reservation, and your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.

Faith is a journey, full of wonder, full of tests.

The problems will come. How will we respond?

Will we cling to our itineraries, our own ideas about where God is and what God should do?

Or will we work with what the Spirit is doing here and now?

Throughout the bible, the journey of faith is compared to the process of forging metal. God, the metal smith, takes raw elements, intransigent rocks, and burns them, melts them, molds them, and casts them into useful tools.

To be Christian is to live in fire – the fire of God’s Spirit constantly remaking us, putting the test to us again. At times it is easy to believe, but these easy times do not make us believers.

In the next song, Jonny Diaz uses the image of a mountain and a valley to illustrate the extremes in our faith journeys. We are called to a faith that will keep “singing” in all extremes.


Certain spaces in the prayer are left open for you to add whatever is on your heart to add.

And Let Us Pray…

Lord God, Creator, Redeemer,

We lift before you the concerns that we share with our world…

… with our nation …

… with our communities …

… our families …

… our friends …

… our neighbors …

… and ourselves …

Watch over us, and guide us in these times of uncertainty and fear, into your promise and your future.

Forgive us for all the wrong that we have done,

Willingly and unwillingly,

Knowingly or unknowingly.

Give us your grace, to resist tomorrow whatever temptation we have given into today,

To persevere in challenges we have yet to face,

To live beyond fear.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.


Now, I’m pleased to introduce my father, Pastor Norman Bude, and his message for this Sunday.


I have decided to follow Jesus…

Let us go forth today with the words of this old song, remembering that the path is not meant to be easy, that there are tests we will pass and fail, unexpected roads to go down, fires to walk through, and a guide there to help us the entire way.

 

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