At the beginning of the service, the whole Church Family gives thanks and praise to God. With joy in our hearts, we sing to give God glory. Why? Because He deserves it! He is the maker of the universe and He is our Father, who loves us.
When we’re thinking about how good God is, we can become all too aware of our own shortcomings… times when we know we’ve gone wrong. God assures us that, when we are honest and admit who we really are, he will forgive us and set us free to be the people we can be.
The central part of our service is when we listen to what God has to say to us. He has always guided his people and still does today. So, we listen together as passages are read from the Bible – we pray for open hearts and minds to REALLY HEAR and understand – then, the minister goes on to draw out the message. Of course that is not the end of the story. If we’re being faithful to God we’ll put the message into practice in our lives!
Having heard of how much God loves and cares for us and of all the things that He does for us, we can hardly leave it at that! And so we respond. In this part of the service, we give our offering to God as a way of saying ‘thank you’, and along with our money offering we offer our whole selves to Him… loving Him because He first loved us. Also at this time, with love, we pray for other people. That too, is a way of being faithful to God.
Finally, we praise God in song then ask His blessing upon us as we go out into the world to live our lives. We trust that He goes with us.
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