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Worship Planner for A Season to GROW
Week 3: Relationships

Created by Liz Mosbo VerHage. Liz is the ministry development pastoral consultant for First Covenant Church, Seattle, WA. She lives in Chicago and is a PhD student at Garrett-Northwestern. Liz blogs at www.livingtheology.net.
 

Suggested Hymns and Songs

See the Worship Resource Directory for links and ordering information.

1. My Jesus I Love Thee. #370 Covenant Hymnal (classic)
2. He's Ever Over Me. #428 Covenant Hymnal (contemporary)
   
3. Every Time I Feel the Spirit. #395 Covenant Hymnal (Spiritual)
4. Back to You. By Matt Nightingale. This song would work well as special music that follows a personal faith story from someone who was once far from God. Could also follow a drama on that topic.
5. They'll Know We are Christians. By Peter Scholtes (1966). (c)1991, Lorenz Corporation.
   
   

With Children

Children’s Sermon could talk about sticks and stones – how words can really impact how we feel about each other. Talk about how important it is to love each other, love our friends and our families, and how much we need them to love us. Then talk about how God taught us that. God loves us first, so that we can love God back, and then love others.    

Suggested Prayers and Readings

1. Ephesians Reading. #958 Covenant Hymnal.
2. Song of Hannah. #987 Covenant Hymnal
3. St. Theresa's Prayer
   

   “May today there be peace within.
   May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
   May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
   May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
   May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
   Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
   It is there for each and every one of us.”
   
   

Sermon Illustrations

Note: Scot McKnight’s new book, A Community Called Atonement is on point with the topic of relationships with God and others. Read about it at www.jesuscreed.org.

• Brennan Manning quote: “If there is little power and shallow wisdom in our preaching, teaching, worship and ministry, I believe it is because the Crucified Christ has been ignored in favor of a lot of ‘burning theological issues,’ most of which are neither burning nor theological.”
  The real crux of “being church” begins, and is always shaped, by relationships. In our post enlightenment era, where apologetics and arguments for ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ demand polarizing answers, relationship within the church offer a ‘third way.’ Our love for God, that makes us ONE in the Spirit, means that we can try to really love each other in and through our differences. Not erase difference – but address that difference as Christ did, with both a love of God and God’s ways, and a genuine love for others. In a polarized world, this is one of the most attractive things that the church can do show the world that we act different. That Christ was crucified to open the world to a deep and life-changing relationship with God. And that the way we learn about God and practice loving God is with our community, it is with loving others.     
  
  
• Reconciliation is a major theological theme for the disciple of Christ. Christ reconciled the world to God through the cross. And Christ reconciled people to each other as well – the vertical and the horizontal reconciling acts, as they are sometimes called. We can’t practice one without the other. We can’t attempt to love our enemies, or even those who annoy us with their driving on the freeway, without an abiding, centering love of God, and the space in our lives to let God love us. And oftentimes it is almost impossible to understand God, to experience the tangible, passionate, depth of God’s love without human arms and smiles encircling us, embodying the love of God.