Worship Guide (v1) for July 26, 2020
Notes to Share for July 26, 2020
Children’s Worship Ages 4-7 for July 26, 2020
Children’s Worship Ages 8-12 for July 26, 2020
This week is the perfect time to join in our worship online. We simplified our online service and made it even easier to participate, and viewing does not require a Facebook account! Join the video stream on Facebook Live (www.facebook.com/coldspringchurch) or, if you don’t have internet access, use our New call in number: +1 (929) 205-6099. Enter Meeting ID: 875 2479 7260.
Re-Discovered Treasures Photo Op!
While staying at home, what forgotten treasures, keepsakes, other items have you re-discovered? Maybe after Summer-cleaning, rearranging, or re-modeling you came across something of value, a forgotten treasure! Share a photo on Facebook, and tag coldspringchurch, or email.
Share Your Experience!
You have found a place to encounter God and people who care about you – just as you are, right where you are, anytime. Once you and your family are ready, share the picture with us by posting to Facebook #ColdSpringChurch or Instagram #coldspringchurchnj. You may want to subscribe to our weekly Connections email newsletter. Sign up here!
Message Preview:
Hello.
When have you felt God’s love even in the midst of a really difficult time? How was God’s love made real to you? Like archeologists of the holy, this week’s Scripture readings from Matthew 13 and Romans 8 will help us excavate our spiritual landscapes for things of worth and resources that help us re-discover God’s presence in our COVID-19 experience.
God’s mercies are new every morning, even COVID-19 mornings. We can re-discover what is truly valuable: people, relationships, creation, beauty, mercy, truth, kindness, joy, love, faith. All things, God says, work together for the good. “That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good” (Romans 8:28). What good can possibly come from something so atrocious and painful as a world pandemic? We can re-discover that God is in the business of turning sadness to joy. We can re-discover spiritual wellness, and the intersection of faith and science. We can re-discover that church is not an indoor place but an outdoor activity of God’s people. We can re-discover Jesus’ (and our) ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing. We can re-discover the mandate of caring for others. We can re-discover home.
I hope to see you Sunday for Worship Online when we Re-Discover God’s Goodness in a COVID-19 World.
Pastor Kevin
Music Preview:
Our worship includes our weekly musical selections offered by Jayne McDonough at our grand piano and a beautiful solo by the Rev. Larry Moyer. We will also enjoy two other inspiring hymns, Graves Into Gardens, and It Is Well With My Soul (When Peace Like A River).
In March 2020, artists Brandon Lake, Chris Brown, Steven Furtick, and Tiffany Hammer of Elevation Music wrote Graves Into Gardens in response to our COVID-19 pandemic world that is causing unimaginable pain, anxiety, and fear with its spiritual, emotional, physical, financial, and social traumas. God accepts and loves us just as we are and delivers treasures of resources to discover. Let’s sing the fantastic news that God turns our graves into gardens, bones into armies, and overwhelming seas into highways of hope. Only God can do that!
Our second hymn, It Is Well With My Soul (When Peace Like A River) offers comfort when things go horribly wrong. In 1873, Horatio Spafford sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to a vacation in France, planning to join them later. Tragically, of his family, only his wife survived. Taking the next boat over, as he passed the spot where the ship went down, he began to write, “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,” drawing comfort and assurance from Christ in times of physical and spiritual crisis, offering us hope today. His friend Philip Bliss composed the tune that will lift our spirits.
