Hope Church Prayer Book seeks to promote a worship culture from Monday to Saturday by conveying worship resources from Sundays. Worship is not a thought, but an action; not a concept, but a practice. And the more we practice, the more in shape we get - in the shape of Jesus. So sing out loud or read a responsive prayer before dinner. Each month’s prayer book will now be available on Hope’s website under the resources tab!
During Lent we’ve been giving extra time in our service towards that active leadership of Jesus. We’ve been calling it a time of response, not reflection. This month’s prayer book is an extended, set-aside time of listening and responding to this real-time leadership. Feel free to do it with a group of friends or alone. What is God directing us to do? Let’s do that.
Call to Worship
First, let’s put ourselves in a posture of receptivity with this call to worship:
Nevertheless
I was in a college worship band called Nevertheless – actually it was called Abba’s Joy, but that was too Swedish for me so I changed it when I took over. The new name came from that part in the Bible, Luke chapter 5, where Jesus commandeers a fisherman’s boat so he can teach the crowd on the shore. After His teaching, he tells Simon (the fisherman), “Let’s go fishing”. Simon’s response was perfectly logical based on his expertise and experience.
“…we’ve worked hard all night [when the fishing is good] and haven’t caught anything. Nevertheless because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.
Luke 5:5
There’s a world of wisdom in the word nevertheless. In this life under the sun, you have to take in information and make decisions. This is right and reasonable. The only catch is not only is our information limited, but so is our imagination. God’s is not. That’s where nevertheless comes in.
You may be coming in with an impossible situation, or worse, an impossible character flaw: can’t stop spending, lusting, losing temper, being lazy, being anxious. And, based on your experience with you, these might be logical conclusions. Nevertheless you don’t have the information God has, and you certainly don’t have His imagination. You don’t ultimately have the final say on you. God does, and that is good news. That is a relief.
And ultimately it’s someone we can trust ultimately with our identity and trajectory.
Kingdom Prayers
And lest we enter into our time of response merely as individuals, let’s first pray this kingdom prayer from our Brazilian Partners and Outreach Team:
Albuquerque and Cascavel
Monica: Lord, you have called us to seek the welfare of the cities in which you have placed us. We long to do this, but we know that it is impossible if we don’t first and always seek your face. So we pray today for our two churches and our two cities.
Guilherme: For our churches, Faculdade and Hope, we pray for renewal: renew in us the joy of our salvation daily; restore in us our first love; wake those of us who are sleepy Christians and ignite us by the power of your Spirit, for the sake of the Gospel and the good of the world.
Monica: Stir up a deep love for those around us. Give us your eyes to see those we would rather overlook; give us your ears to hear those we would rather tune out; give us your compassion to listen to and believe what our neighbors are telling us; and give us your heart to spend ourselves on behalf of those around us.
Guilherme: For our cities, Cascavel and Albuquerque, we pray for revival: pour out your Spirit to hover over these cities as you hovered over your creation in the beginning. Rush into the spaces of darkness, brokenness, sickness and death, and bring forth life, light, healing, and flourishing instead.
Monica: Lead us to welcome the foreigner with genuine hospitality and care. We pray your protection for our neighbors who spend their days and nights on the streets of our cities, vulnerable to threats all around. Move us toward them in love, humility and learning. We pray for those who are hiding secrets of shame, that you would free them to bring their secrets to the light: whether alcohol or porn, a wandering eye or a lying tongue, a prideful spirit or an inferiority complex. We pray that you would reveal yourself to them, convict them to see the reality of their life, and then lead them to embrace the even deeper reality of your love.
Guilherme: We commit our churches and our cities to you this morning. Be gracious to us, and give us the courage, compassion and wisdom to join you where you call us to follow.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Time of Response
Now, as we come to the central moment of our time – not the prayers or thoughts we bring to God, but those He is bringing to us – let us predetermine our obedience to his promptings. I encourage you to use this playlist of songs we’ve introduced over the past month for this purpose as you listen. I’d also suggest kneeling. Here are some “conversation starters”, but keep in mind the best answers are usually to the questions we are not yet asking but need to.
Lord, what destructive coping mechanisms have I been turning to in order to deal with the sorrows of life and vanity of death?
Lord, is there bitterness that You need to set you free from?
Lord, where are You asking me to sow fearlessly right now?
The Next Step
What direction did you get from the Holy Spirit? Write it down, share it with a friend, and do it.
But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.
James 1:25
