Cove's Celebration Service - February 19, 2017

Below is the service I led at Cove Presbyterian Church on February 19, 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 “I Will Sing of My Redeemer.”

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. Before we prayed, our bell choir performed. As we collected the offering, the choir sang “If We Truly Believe.” 

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, we looked at Matthew 9:35-38: 

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

And the title of the sermon is “Spiritual Growth for Short People: Bringing in the Harvest,” and we’ll consider the fourth step if we want to grow in our relationship and our understanding of God.

We ended the service by singing "Turn You Eyes Upon Jesus."

Below is the podcast of the service.