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. Our liturgy is written by worship director Justin Shaffer in collaboration with worship directors at other Sojourn churches.
This Sunday Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Romans 11 in the third sermon of our 5 Solas series, “Faith Alone.” We also celebrated a baptism at our 11am service, and we observed Orphan Care Sunday (I know, it’s one week later than the official, national Orphan Care Sunday, but we had some scheduling conflicts the previous week). Learn more about Sojourn Community Church here.
Nov 19, 2017 – Orphan Sunday – Baptisms – God’s Glory Alone from Sojourn Community Church on Vimeo.
How Can the Heavens Hold You written by Jeremy Quillo.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Welcome to Sojourn! Please pardon our mess… I’m Justin… Today is Orphan Sunday, a day where we remember our call as Christians to defend and care for the fatherless. Orphans are near and dear to the heart of God, and it is because of his grace towards us that we who were once spiritual orphans are now adopted as children of God – It’s also baptism Sunday!! Baptism is a beautiful, dramatic picture of this glorious truth… and we have the great privilege of celebrating new life in Christ depicted in baptism during the 11:00 service.
We hear this call 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.
Publish his glorious deeds among the nations.
Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.
Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!
—Psalm 68:4-6, 96:3-4b
God has set the lonely in a family, even this family worshipping together today! Our God is great, glorious, and worthy of all of our praise and honor. So let’s respond to His invitation to revel in His beauty and majesty, as we continue to worship.
Our Great God written by Mac Powell and Fernando Ortega.
INTERCESSORY PRAYER for Orphan Sunday
Dear Father, On this Orphan Sunday, we join with Your people across our country and beyond to pray for orphans.
We know that love for these precious children begins not with us, but with You. You pursued us when we were wayward and alone. You adopted us as your children. You invite us to address you as Daddy and to live as Your sons and daughters. Truly, we love because You first loved us.
You tell us also that You are near to the downtrodden and destitute. Your heart aches for children that face the world alone. You champion the cause of those who have no one else to take their side. And You call us to do the same.
So we pray that You would rouse us to share your heart. We ask that You would stir Your people to passion and vision and action on behalf of children that have no family.
We lift up to You the millions of children in the world who have lost their parents to disease, to war, to addiction, to poverty, to abandonment. As You promise to do, place the lonely in families. Be their defender, their provider, their hope and peace. Help us to do the same.
We pray also for the five hundred thousand children in our foster system in America. So often, they are bounced from home to home, knowing little love, consistency or true nurture. Please be their love, their consistency, their nurture. Help us to do the same.
We confess that we have often lived with little regard for these precious lives. Please forgive us. Lead us to take up their cause as a joyful response to Your great love for us.
As we do, we pray that You would use our humble response to transform. To transform the lives of countless orphans both physically and spiritually. To transform us as we encounter You in them. To transform Your Church as we lift our eyes beyond our own comfort and self-focused religion to live out the beauty of the Gospel. And finally, to transform a watching world as it catches glimpses of Your love made visible through the actions of Your people.
We commit all this to You, the One who is both our Father and a Father to the fatherless, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Lead Us Back written by Bobby Gilles and Brooks Ritter.
ASSURANCE/GIVING
Though we fall short of God’s holiness, God didn’t wait for us to clean up our mess; instead, He adopted us, mess and all, into His family. That’s a real, unchanging love, unlike any other!! Listen to this amazing truth:
Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us.
—adapted from Ephesians 1:4-6
We were made to be in relationship with God. Even though we sinned, God made a way for us to be a part of His family. We get to live in community with Him and bring him glory. Let’s pray this aloud as we prepare our tithes and offerings:
Father, in the presence of each other
We bringing you this offering, for thine is the Kingdom
And the power, and the glory, forever! Amen
Let us behold him as we sing:
O My Soul Arise written by Charles Wesley and Eric McAllister.
PASSING OF THE PEACE
As a family, let us celebrate the peace that we have with God and one another by getting to know each other a bit better and especially going out of our way to meet someone new. 🙂
[Sermon]
[Communion]
Song Holy, Holy, Holy written by Reginald Haber and John B. Dykes.
BAPTISM (11:00 only)
READING (9:00 only)
Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. John 17:1-3
Let’s stand and sing to the one to whom all glory is due.
What a Beautiful Name written by Brooke Ligertwood and Ben Fielding.
BENEDICTION
Lord Jesus Christ, send us out with confidence in your word,
to tell the world of your saving acts, and bring glory to your name.
Send us, we pray, in the name…
-(A Prayer Book for Australia)