Welcome to Sojourn’s weekly worship music set list review & service recap. You’ll not only read a list of the songs we led, but also the readings and prayers from our liturgy. And if you’d like to see how we incorporate liturgical art and lead the responsive readings, watch the embedded video of our entire service, or check it out on the Sojourn New Albany Facebook page. Below that, you can watch a higher res video of the sermon itself.
Our liturgy is written by worship director Justin Shaffer in collaboration with worship directors at other Sojourn churches.
This Sunday Pastor Stephen Pierce preached Acts 2:42-47, looking at the Christian identity as a “family.” To learn more about Sojourn Church, click here.
They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love
CALL TO WORSHIP
Welcome to Sojourn! I’m _____ one of the _______ here. Sometimes it’s a fearful thing for us to go to church. Sometimes it a fearful thing to even pray or sing. For some of us, it’s easy to feel unworthy – like we don’t belong in God’s presence, or amongst God’s people. But we belong because God has made it so… it is because of his grace towards us that we who were once spiritual orphans are now adopted as children of God. We hear this truth in scripture:
Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds;
Rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing.
—Psalm 68:4-6
God has set the lonely in a family, even this family worshipping together today! Let’s sing together as we set our gaze on God our great Father this morning!
Good Good Father
CONFESSION
Let’s say this together:
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
-Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
The gospel frees us to be vulnerable before our Good Father. So as a church, as a community, let’s confess any ways that we have strayed from Him and let this be our prayer: “Christ–may I be fully satisfied in you.”
Satisfied in You
ASSURANCE/GIVING
Hear this good word 🙂
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.
Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. -Romans 8:14-16 NLT
The Apostle Paul gives inspiring words for us today as he describes a people in need who desired to give generously to the glory of God:
They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. -2 Cor. 8:2-5
People who had very little gave abundantly and generously because they didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to contribute to God’s mission. May the Lord give us hearts with the same spirit of generosity for the sake of the Gospel.
Let’s pray:
Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us— our selves, our time, and our possessions—signs of your gracious love. Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us— Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
-The Worship Sourcebook
Your Love Changes Everything
PASSING OF THE PEACE
Let us live into our identity as family by spending some quality time with one another for the next few moments 🙂
[Sermon]
[Communion]
Fellowship So Deep
Baptism! (11:00)
How He Loves/Lean on Me
BENEDICTION
23 Peace be with you, dear brothers and sisters, and may God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you love with faithfulness. 24 May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. -Ephesians 6:23-24 NLT