The River Church Community

Hi folks! In addition to all the other goodies that we are putting on this blog, we are also going to try to have post-sunday sermon reflection questions, so that you can discuss the sermon with your friends after the service and during the following week. We hope this will be an additional tool that God will use to deepen the work He begins in us through our weekly time together!

Sunday Synopsis:

This Sunday Brad will be speaking about what it means to worship as a community. The message is titled "Survivor vs. Real Belonging". We'll look at 1 Peter 2 and the imagery Peter uses of people being like living stones, being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. What does it mean for us to be stones that rub against one another, but are ultimately meant to form something so much greater than our individual selves? Please join me in praying that our experience of worship would be one of the ways we are formed into this holy priesthood and that we would reflect the words from Peter - "you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (v.9)

Post-Service Sermon Reflection questions:

 How do you feel about greeting those who are outside your circle of friends on Sunday morning?  How often do you do it?  What keeps you from doing it more often? 

 Are there worship songs that don’t connect with your preferred style?  What do you normally do during those songs?   What feelings arise in your heart?  Do your feelings change if you consider the possibility that those songs may connect with someone else in the community?  What invitation might God be extending to you during songs that aren’t in your preferred style?

 What do you do when you feel “stuck” spiritually (can’t get out of discouragement, anxiety, etc)?  How do you feel about the prospect of asking someone else to pray for you during service?  How would it feel to commit yourself to asking someone for prayer on those occasions when you feel stuck?

 Have you ever gotten a sense that God is giving you a word or message for someone in the community?  How do you feel about the possibility that God wants to move through you to minister to others?  (Excited?  Intimidated?  Skeptical?)  How might you make yourself more available to be a vessel of God’s truth and grace to others?

Worship Response:

Our psalm this week is Ps. 84 and the lyrics to the hook are as follows:

We are chosen people, like living stones

built as a household of mercy.

We also will be practicing a few more prayer postures just like last week to help prepare our whole selves to receive and worship God together.

On the red carpet this week we will have a temple foundation built of "bricks" that have the names of  global Church saints and our own church leaders written on it. We used this visual as a station at our leaders retreat, inviting all of our leaders to glue their brick onto the wall and allow God's voice to speak a word of promise as they reflect on being built together. We will be inviting everyone in the congregation to do the same during our response time. May the Holy Spirit speak of word of hope to you as you pray through your commitment to be built into a holy temple with the rest of the saints here at The River.

Songs for sunday:

Hosanna - Hillsong United

Multiply your love - Andy Park

See ya Sunday!

krista-dawn