What is 12/9 Worship Service of Repentance all about?
The focus of our worship service this Sunday will be a call to repentance. This may be new for many of us. For that reason, a further explanation would be helpful. Repentance is a word that we hear in sermons or use in church on occasion, but we may not know what it means.
First, let’s talk about what it is not. Biblical repentance is not simply the sense of being sorry because we were found out. Nor is it a sense of regret that leaves us where it found us.
Rather, repentance is the result of God’s Spirit convicting us so that we recognize sin(s) in our lives and respond with grief and a hatred for that sin. It also results in a change of mind and a decision to go in a new direction of obeying God.
The Lord has revealed to us as a congregation some areas of our ministry here at Centreville Presbyterian in which He is calling us to repent and go in a new direction. We discover in scripture and our personal lives that one of the requirements of a growing relationship with God is the confession of our sins through the enabling power of The Holy Spirit.
This Sunday we will come before the Lord God to confess our lack of focusing on His Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). We will ask Him to change our minds and hearts to lead us in a renewed direction of making disciples of all nations. Together, we will lay our lives and relationships before the Lord so that He can bring His healing to bear in each of them.
Following the worship service, we will have an opportunity to take steps in the direction of our repentance by going out in teams to pray over various neighborhoods in our area (we will not be knocking on doors). Our hope and prayer is that the Lord will use this experience to give us a love and compassion for those who live in our mission field where He planted CPC.
While teens and adults prayer walk, we will have a Christmas for kids pre-K- 5th in room 206. The nursery staff will be staffed, also.
After the prayer walk (prayer for neighborhoods, people whom you may know as you drive by their homes (please note we will not be knocking on doors)), we will return to the church for a light lunch and then conclude our fellowship by sharing the Lord’s prayer.
Although this experience is different from a typical worship service, I can assure you that it will be a powerful encounter with God that will challenge and bless us.
Rob
