Cove's Celebration Service - Sunday, January 15, 2017

Below is the service I led at Cove Presbyterian Church on January 15, 2017. During the winter of 2017, I preached a series of sermons entitled "Spiritual Growth for Short People." As it relates to spiritual growth, have you ever felt “height challenged”? If you’ve ever felt somewhat short in the spirituality department, this sermon series is for you. For six Sundays, we discussed how we might grow in our faith and in our relationship with God. Specifically, we cover the following growth-related topics:
✙ Recognizing Our Limits ✙ Trusting the Lord ✙ Loving One Another ✙ Making an Impact ✙ Sharing the Message ✙ Bringing in the Harvest

As with all our services, worship is intended to be a free expression of our love for God and the joy we feel when we accept that love. Of course, there are many ways for us to express that love and joy. So that we can experience a greater sense of freedom and flexibility in our praise, the session decided to move away from a rigid order of worship, with the different elements printed in a very formal way, and to utilize the screen and the worship leader to guide us through the service. Below you’ll find some material that you may need to participate fully in our praise and reverence for God.

We started the service with the announcements. As the Bible entered, we sang "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made.”

Instrumental and vocal music are important to our worship. Songs give us the chance to praise God and to help focus our attention on the theme of the service. During the service, we have the opportunity to sing songs that reflect different musical styles. Since God has called into his church as individuals with a variety of tastes, this offers us the chance to display our sensitivity for our fellow worshipers and to grow in our knowledge of how we might praise God. Our first two songs were “Come, Thou Almighty King” and “May Your Presence Purify My Heart.”

Our prayers represent our communication with God. Of course, as Paul wrote, the Holy Spirit “...intercedes for us with groans too deep for words”; therefore, God already knows our needs. Still it’s important that we put them into words, as well as the regret we feel for our sins and our thanks for all God has done for us.

During the Our Congregational Prayer, we confessed our sins and hear the assurance that we're forgiven.  We also lifted our concerns and needs to God.  We closed this prayer with The Lord’s Prayer. As we collected the offering, the choir sang “Way Down Deep In My Soul.” 

God’s word is at the core of the worship service. It’s often reflected in the songs we sing and the prayers we pray. But it’s most clearly present when we read a passage from the Bible, and it’s applied to our daily living in the sermon.

This morning, the messages in this series, Spiritual Growth for Short People and focused on are based on 1 John 1:5-10:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

And the title of the sermon was “Spiritual Growth for Short People: Recognizing Our Limits,” and we consider ed the first step if we want to grow in our relationship and our understanding of God.

Our service ended with the congregation singing “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”

Below is the podcast of the service.