Preparing For Worship: May 11, 2008 Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! What a great opportunity we have this Sunday to thank God specifically for his grace in the form of our mothers! Pastor Todd will be looking at the analogy of motherhood that the apostle gives to illustrate how ministry should work. What a perfect picture of gentleness, affection, selflessness, and sacrifice.

We'll start the morning with "You're Worthy Of My Praise" but I want to let you in on some changes I made to the song. I always felt that singing "you alone are worthy of my praise" and other lines within the song made it seem like our praises were a very valuable prize that God has won; that he's beaten out the competition, and we're bestowing his prize upon him. Adding to that, I never completely liked how every line in the song begins with "I will..." Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the sentiment of the song, and the commitment aspect it represents, but I think that it is more biblical to say those type of things in RESPONSE to who GOD is, and what HE has done.

So, I've written a new verse to the song with lines that begin with "You..." that focus us first on who God is, and what he has done, and THEN we respond "I will give you all my worship" BECAUSE of those things. The last line of the chorus will also declare "You alone are worthy of ALL praise!"

It may seem nitpicky, but in light of Pastor Todd's message last week, let us not be hasty to utter our own words before the Lord!

So here's the new verse (sung to the same tune and rhythm of the other verses):

You have shown us, Your marvelous works
You've declared that, You're of infinite worth
You redeemed us, through Christ on the cross
You have called us, to count this world as loss

So now you know.

We'll continue in worship with a time of announcements, and ministry opportunities, including our Baby Bottle Boomerang, where we'll take home a baby bottle and fill it with cash, checks, or coins, and then bring it back on Father's Day, at which point we'll give them all to the SCV Pregnancy Center! Very cool ministry.

We'll learn a new song, which I posted last week, called "Grace Unmeasured" as we consider God's grace to us, and then corporately respond to that grace with "Overwhelmed."

We'll have a short media presentation honoring our mothers before Pastor Todd comes and preaches from 1 Thessolonians 2:7-9.

Our children and fathers will then be able to present each mom and woman in the church with a flower to show our love and appreciation for them, as we sing "Humble King" together, savoring Christ's model of humility to us.

We'll go out as salt and light into the world singing "Marvelous Light" which reminds us of who we used to be, and what we've become since the saving grace of God took hold of us!

Looking forward to a great morning worshiping together!