Getting Ready For Sunday: How To Prepare For The 1/17/10 Sojourn Gathered

This week is a Baptism Sunday at Sojourn Gathered.  New believers in each campus and service will participate in this symbol of death to sin and new life in Christ.  You can read baptism testimonies each week here at TravelBlog, like this week’s.  And if you’d like to be baptized, you can prepare for our March 14th Baptism Sunday by visiting this link or emailing baptism@sojournchurch.com.

SPECIAL UPDATE. 9:23am, 1-15-10 WE’LL NOW INCLUDE A SPECIAL TIME OF LAMENT IN THIS WORSHIP SERVICE FOR THE TRAGEDY IN HAITI.  THIS WILL OCCUR AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SERVICE. DETAILS AT SOJOURNMUSIC.COM, INCLUDING A FREE MP3 OF THE SONG WE’LL SING TOGETHER DURING THIS LAMENT.

Pastor Daniel will continue our month-long trek through Proverbs.  This Sunday he will focus on what Proverbs has to say about friendship.  Christ values and embodies friendship.  He offers us the friendship with God that His blood makes possible.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)

And each week we practice this in the Passing Of The Peace, right before hearing the sermon — we greet each other as friends rather than strangers, because Christ has broken down the barriers that prevented friendship between God and us, and between each other. (Learn more about the Passing of the Peace here).

Proverbs has a lot to say about how to live and grow in friendship, which our pastor will teach Sunday:

• sharpening friendship
• keeping friends
• being patient
• using words wisely
• avoiding gossip.

If you haven’t yet picked up your free Proverbs monthly devotional, you can do so this week.  It will follow Pastor Daniel’s sermon, helping you focus each day on a different aspect of friendship.  Of course you can also find each day’s devotional thought right at devo.sojournchurch.com, five days a week.

Songs we’ll sing this week include:

• Thy Mercy (listen for free to Sandra McCracken’s version here)
• Awake My Soul (listen for free to Caedmon’s Call’s version here)
• I Sing The Mighty Power Of God

and more.  The East campus will sing the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” while Sojourners at The 930 will sing “Thorns,” written by our own Charlie Richardson.   Although we have not yet recorded “Thorns,” you can preview the lyrics to this great Sojourn original here (guitar chords included, too).

Until Sunday, meditate on these words, which we will pray together then:

Lord, the Great “I AM”,

Fill our thoughts with wonder at the thought of you – with whom one day is as a thousand years.

Though worlds collapse and empires fall
you never vary in your glory.

May we rejoice that while men die, The LORD lives.

The grass whithers and flowers fade,
but you are the Rock of Ages and the Fountain of living Water.

Turn our hearts from vanity and dissatisfaction
from uncertainty about tomorrow
to an eternal interest in Jesus.

Let us remember that life is short,
that we must redeem the time
to be awake to the call to love our neighbors,
feed the hungry,
reclaim the lost,
forgive the offender,
and spread the Gospel.

May we be ever-dependent upon you, Amen.