Getting Ready For Sunday: How To Prepare For The 1.31.2010 Sojourn Gathered

This Sunday begins a big week in the Sojourn community because we are launching our Vision campaign, and we are moving internal web communications to The City. You’ll be reading lots about those things in the days and weeks to come, here in TravelBlog.

We’re also going to conclude our month-long study of the Book of Proverbs.  Pastor Daniel will teach what Proverbs has to say about family.  Of course family is a huge theme in scripture.  We are all descendents of Adam and Eve, created in the image of God.  And those of us who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior have been “grafted in” to the family of God.  We are literally His children — brothers and sisters to one another.

Scripture also teaches how to honor and respect our individual, biological family units.  Proverbs contains many implications for God-honoring family life.  It teaches on:

• Biblical manhood and womanhood
• Marriage
• On parenting and being parented
• On family dysfunction.

Come prepared to learn what God’s Word says about family.  And be prepared to go deeper next week with daily short devotional thoughts on these issues, at devo.sojournchurch.com.  Of course if you pick up the free Monthly Devotional at Sojourn Gathered, then you can read each day’s thoughts straight from the printed page.

Speaking of family, we celebrate the Passing of the Peace and Communion each week at Sojourn Gathered.  These are both enactments that we “practice” at Sojourn Gathered, which represent familial realities.

• In the Passing of the Peace, we greet and converse with one another in the spirit of peace that Christ won for us on the cross.  Through his death, Jesus broke down the wall between God and mankind, and between the races, genders, countries, cliques and individuals.

• Through communion we share a common meal, a “love feast,” which represents the body and blood of Christ.  Again, these are the sacrificial  elements that make it possible for us to be a family.

For more on these elements, see:

1. Why We Do What We Do: Communion
2. Why We Do What We Do: The Passing Of The Peace

This week we’ll sing “There Is A Peace,” from our Before The Throne record.  If you do not have the CD or mp3, you can hear “There Is A Peace” on the playlist at Facebook.com/SojournMusic. Other songs we’ll do together include:

• Merciful God (Hear Tammy Trent’s version for free on last.fm)
• How Deep The Father’s Love For Us (Hear Sarah Sadler’s version for free on last.fm)
• You Never Let Go (Hear songwriter Matt Redman’s version for free on last.fm – includes “Mighty To Save” in medley)

See you Sunday!