Preparing for worship on January 3 2016

As we prepare for worship on the first Sunday of a New Year it is the perfect time to invite a friend to join you for church. Tomorrow we will bring a new element to our worship - you will not want to miss this!  I also begin a new teaching series.  We make our plans - but God has the last word in our preparation for worship.  Here is the prepared order of worship for tomorrow - January 3, 2016:

We begin with a warm welcome by Pastor Jordan and begin to sing of the greatness of our Holy God!

When we think about the pursuit of holiness it can feel pretty overwhelming. Most of us have lots of areas in our life that we need to work on: Relationships; Habits; Attitudes; Behaviors. Where to start? In our desire to deal with everything, sometimes we turn the pursuit of holiness into nothing more than a general commitment to do better. But holiness is not just a general commitment to “be more like Christ” or to “keep growing.” 

It is tangible and specific. And it has to be pursued that way. Over the next 5 weeks I will encourage you to identify one area of your life where you would like to be noticeably different: marriage, habits, spiritual disciplines, sexuality, finances or emotional stability. And we will also encourage you to identify one thing in that area and develop an actionable plan that is both challenging and attainable. 

At the close of the message today we come the altar of the Lord to make our confess on faith and place our desires on the altar in faith. With a pure heart, we then partake of communion.