Corporate Readings

There is no part of the corporate gathering that is passive. When someone is praying, we pray with them. When someone is preaching we lean in actively listening. When we sing we sing out for the sake of the Lord and our brothers and sisters - even when we don’t like the songs, even when we don’t know the songs. We show up ready to serve, love, and give - not simply prepared to receive or take.

Corporate readings are an easy way to increase active participation in the corporate gathering. Simply reading a passage of Scripture aloud together, reading something as a call and response, reciting a prayer, or reading from the Book of Common Prayer, the Worship Sourcebook, The Valley of Vision, or simply reading lyrics to a hymn.

Because we have been made in the image of a God who speaks, the ability to speak is a divine gift. God spoke the universe into existence and sustains it by the word of His power. Scripture says that there is the power of life and death in the tongue. Our words matter and are significant in the formation of our minds, hearts, and souls - as well as in the formation of the family of God.

25 June: Tuesday Refocus

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” - Colossians 3:12-14

How am I dressing my heart and life? Although as a follower of Jesus, we know that the Holy Spirit must work in us for the truths of Colossians 3 to be not just true externally but internally (Philippians 2:13), there also seems to be a sense that we can choose what we put on - how we choose to interact with brothers and sisters.

When we celebrate communion we come back to the table, back to the place where we are reminded what God in Christ has accomplished for us. We come face to face with those who have wounded us and whom we have wounded. We forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). We see how God has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between God and man. We put on the clothes of those who work to bring down the divisions between brothers and sisters (Ephesians 2:14).

Father, may these things be true of us. Amen and amen.

Amen,

AB

June 12: Liturgy + Set List

• HOW GREAT THOU ART

  Call to Worship: Psalm 29:1-4

  The voice of God cuts through all of the noise and chaos of the world and our lives. So let’s pray that as we sing, and as we sit under God’s Word, and as we come to the communion table we would hear the generative, generous, kind, voice of God, drawing us unto Himself and sending us out on mission.

• GRAVES INTO GARDENS

• GREAT ARE YOU LORD

  Sermon: James 3:1-12

  Communion

  Let’s use our words to declare what is true of who God is and what He has done, would you stand and sing:

• RAISE A HALLELUJAH

  Benediction:

Plural Pronouns

We live in a pronoun-obsessed culture.

But rarely do we make conscious decisions about pronouns in our corporate gathering when it comes to songs, readings, and prayers.

In the West, we have often emphasized having a personal relationship with Jesus, at the expense of understanding that we are not just saved to be an individual, but saved to be a people, a part of the family, the body of Christ, His Church. As a result, we see lots of language in our corporate worship songs that emphasize the individual: I, me, my, mine.

But when we gather as the people of God we are once again reminded of the corporate nature of our identity as followers of Jesus. We are the Body of Christ.

When we intentionally choose songs, prayers, and readings that use plural pronouns we are simultaneously reinforcing our truer identity as a people. And countering the dominant narrative and understanding that our Christian faith is merely an individual pursuit.

We need individual pronouns as well. We want to make space for individual praise, confession, repentance, and response. But we need plural pronouns to rightly form what the culture has deformed in the life of every follower of Jesus.

Words matter. So let us think intentionally about how language shapes our understanding of who we are and who we are becoming.

December 31: Tuesday Refocus

Father, let me dedicate all this year to You

In whate’er my earthly state, in whate’er I do

Not from sorrow, pain, or care, freedom dare I claim

This alone shall be my prayer: glorify Your name.

Whether anticipation or indifference, we have all looked to a new year and planned our way. But the God who stands outside of time and space holds the vapor of our life in His hand and is establishing our steps. (Pr 16:9, Jm 4:14, Acts 17:25)

Can a child presume to choose where or how to live?

Can a father’s love refuse all the best to give?

More You give me ev’ry day, than the best can claim

Help me trust You that I may, glorify Your name

We have a Father who delights to give good gifts to His children. A Father who knows our need before we ask Him. A Father who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing, chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, predestined us in love for adoption, to the praise of His glorious grace. (Matt 7:11, Matt 6:8, Eph 1:3-6)

If in mercy You prolong joys that now are mine

If on life serene and fear brighter rays may shine,

Let my glad heart, while it sings, You in all proclaim

And, whate’er the future brings, glorify Your name

Whether cast down, in turmoil, rejected or mourning, I will go to God - to God my exceeding joy. I will Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. (Ps 43:5,2,4)

If You have for me a cross and its shadow come

Turning all my gain to loss, shrouding heart and home

Let me think how Your dear Son, to His glory came

And in deepest woe pray on: glorify Your name

Shall we accept only good from God? The One who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? The shadow of the cross compares nothing to the eternal weight of glory - future joy. All things may be counted as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. (Job 2:10, Rom 8:32, 2 For 4:17, Heb 12:2, Phil 3:8)

‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Rom 8:35,37-39

In this year, as in the last, and all the ages to come, Lord, glorify Your name. In the name of Christ, amen.

For His glory,

AB

‘Father, Here We Dedicate’ Laurence Tuttiett, 1864

September 17: Tuesday Refocus

‘It looks like I’m going to have to let go of what I expected and enter a mystery.’ – Eugene Peterson

There is a desirable clarity in an expected life. 

Black and white. 

Easy to measure and manage.

But the life of faith lets go of the seemingly certain, and clings to the Rock that is higher than I (Ps 62:2).  The life of faith is entering a mystery.

In this mystery we see a God whose voice strips the forest bare, but also speaks tenderly to His people (Ps 29:9, Hosea 2:14).  We see a God who is good, and does good, and can even turn evil for His good purpose (Ps 119:68, Gen 50:20).  We experience God – not as distant, but One who dwells in the heart of all believers through faith (Eph 3:17).

Lord, let us be people who walk by faith into the mystery.  Deeper into the beauty of Your heart, and deeper into the brokenness of the world.  Thank You that you have chosen to reveal Yourself at all.  Let us cling to You, not our expectations, in Christ name, amen.

Entering the mystery,

AB

August 20: Tuesday Refocus

‘Show me, O God, where to look, that I might see You.’ – Augustine

Where can He not be found?

He is the beginning and end (Rev 22:13).

He is in the height and the depth (Ps 139:8).

In the universe created and sustained (Heb 1:3).

In the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14).

He turns idol worshipers into fathers of faith (Gen 12:1).

He is with the orphan and the widow (Gen 16:13).

He bends evil intentions of men for good (Gen 50:20).

He uses cowardly leaders for His purpose (Ex 4:13).

He is in the wandering (Deut 8:2, Hos 2:14).

He is in the unexpected provision (Ex 16).

He makes all things beautiful in their time (Ecc 3:11).

He is with us while we sleep (1 Sam 3:3-4, Ps 4:8).

He sees us when we are the last, least and forgotten (1 Sam 16:11).

He is with us in captivity (Ps 137).

He is with acquainted with all our grief (Is 53:3).

He has become our sin (2 Cor 5:21).

He remembers our sin no more (Is 43:25, Heb 8:12).

He is in the whisper, and He is in the storm (1 Kings 19:12, Ps 50:3).

He is the voice calling from behind, guiding (Is 30:21).

He keeps company with the unlikely (Mk 2:15).

He calls a people unto Himself (Deut 7:6).

He inhabits the praises of His people (Ps 22:3).

He does not forsake the work of His hands (Ps 138:8).

He pursues His enemies (Lk 19:10, Rom 5:10).

He is in the prison cell (Acts 12, Acts 19).

He is with His persecuted Church (Acts 7:55-56, Jn 15:18).

He is the Word living and active (Heb 4:12).

He is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8).

He is the sacrifice, perfect and complete (Heb 10:14).

He has died (Jn 19:30).

He has risen (Matt 28:6).

He sits at the right hand of the Father (Eph 1:20).

He has come (Jn 1:9).

And He is coming again (Rev 1:7).

‘And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ Col 1:17

Oh Lord, show us where to look for You.  In cubicles and broken appliances.  In early mornings and sleepless nights.  In mundane errands and long conversations.  In loneliness and fear.  When we have sinned, and when we have been sinned against.  In unexpected turns, and abrupt endings.  In grief and in joy.  In tears and callused hearts.  In transitions and long stretches of sameness.  In time moving too slow, and in time moving too fast.  In prayers too apprehensive and sacred to be uttered.  In our zealous apathy.  In hope deferred and desires only realized in part.  In the creation You have made, and in Your image emblazoned even upon our enemies.  Lord, give us eyes to see You in all things.  We believe that there is enough grace for this moment, because You are here with us in this moment.  In Your gracious name we pray, amen.

Looking,

AB