Tomorrow's Offering

Tomorrow is Commitment Sunday and I will be preaching from Philippians. It will be a busy day for a couple of reasons. Morning services, the funeral for Earl Stuckenbruck in the afternoon, followed by the church picnic.

I have two of tomorrow's pastoral prayers and will post them both (as per requests). I hope to see you tomorrow:

Prayers of the Church for Grandview
19 October 2008

9:30 Service: Bill Greer

Our most gracious and loving God,

We come again into your presence, bringing with us our weaknesses and our imperfections. Yet you welcome us with open arms. For your abundant grace and endless love we are grateful and so we worship you today with joy and thanksgiving.

We continue to thank you for the blessings of life – so many of which we too often take for granted. For the breathtaking colors of this season, for the rich blessings of family and friends, and for the belonging and purpose that we find at Grandview, we thank you. We are grateful, too, that we have the amazing privilege and awesome responsibility of serving you. We pray that our efforts, small though they may be relative to the needs of the world, in some way serve to honor you.

Father, we thank you for the healing of mind, body, and spirit that you unceasingly provide. We stand amazed at your power. We bring our prayers to you this day for those in need of healing and for those in need of your presence in their lives. Help us to be your hands and feet as we seek ways to serve those around us who are in need of you and your grace. May our service and our love extend to those who are different from us, including our enemies.

In the silence, we lift up the names of those who are in special need of your grace:

(silence)

Lord, you have blessed us with an abundance that we often fail to appreciate or comprehend. Help us to recognize the responsibility that each of us have to be good stewards of those things which you have given us. May we seek ways to use our talents and our time to honor you in all things and in all facets of our lives.

May we also seek ways to use our treasure for purposes that bring glory to you. By giving financially to Grandview, we are able, by your grace, to support a remarkable ministerial staff and gather together inside a comfortable building. But we’re also supporting other ministries beyond our walls, some who are scattered throughout this city and some who are scattered across the globe. We pray for the many ministries we support. And we pray for the work of other congregations in Johnson City, throughout the United States, and around the world, that collectively we might carry out the great commission of spreading the gospel to all people far better than any of us could do alone.

And so, we ask for your guidance and your blessing as we commit our resources to your work. May our collective financial support be sufficient to enable our ministry to grow without bounds.

Together, we join our voices together asking that your will be done, as Jesus asked of you when he taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven…



11am Service: Bob Hall (the younger)

God of peace, you shower your blessings down on us. You are all mighty, all powerful, all knowing, all seeing. You know our minds, You know our hearts, yet You love us anyway.
You are our God and we praise Your name.
Lord, we come before you, all prisoners of one sort or another. Alone we cannot break free of our bonds, of our shackles, of our desires, of our sin. In good times and bad, seasons of plenty and shades of want, our only proper place for trust lies in You. Through the presence of Your Spirit, through the majesty of the Christ, You make us strong. And the strength You give us, in Jesus name, allows us to do all things.
Father, true contentment is not a human achievement. It is a divine gift. Bless us with us with this most cherished of gifts…contentment without complacency; contentment knowing we are doing Your will brought about in serving You by serving Your kingdom, serving others, giving sacrificially of ourselves. Help us be content with what we have and what we don’t have. Help us live true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing and commendable lives. Allow Your contentment to free us from earthly shackles of greed and hubris, of selfish desire. Liberate us to give with abandon, a level of contentment only found from being a member of your family. Engender in us a sense of joy, that we need to give so much that we look for every opportunity to do so, knowing it is pleasing to you and nourishes the soul, mind, body.
Bless our enemies, Father. Give us the grace to give them our blessings, too.
We raise up to Your our brother in Jesus Christ, Earl Stuckenbruck. A more utterly decent, humble loving servant, full of Christ-like grace never walked this earth. Gather him up in your arms and give him his rest.
And now in the silence, Father, hear our prayers…of want, of plenty, of emptiness, of joy:


Bless your Church, Holy God. Bless it with Christian servants around the world...from mountains of China to the deserts of Iraq to the shores of Africa to the rain forests of South America to the streets of Europe and here at home. Bless the churches in East Tennessee. And Bless Grandview Christian Church. We are Your children and You are our God.
And now we pray together as Jesus taught us to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.