A housekeeping note before we get started. We heard from your feedback last week that while streaming the video's generally worked, some people had issues with lag and buffering. So rather than embedding the video's on our site I've instead included links to the video's (as to decrease the load on our server). Please let us know if this is helpful, or if it's rather distracting having to open up new windows for everything.

Now, let's begin.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.  Welcome to our online service.  As you prepare to work through the service, we invite you to find a candle, if you have one, and place it near you on a table or such.  Take a  moment, a minute, to be silent.  Then light the candle  as a symbol of the light and life of Christ in our world, in our midst.  (If you do not have a candle, simply pause for a minute and then say aloud "Thank you Jesus for being life and light in our world and in our midst." )  Now click on the welcome below.

Kevin's Welcome Video​

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

The Lion And The Lamb

This week we are going to include a bit of worship for the kids! So gather round and feel free to get moving!

Higher Than The Sky

For the prayer time:
(If you are meeting as a family, share some of these things with each other.  If you are meeting alone, perhaps you want to write your responses in a journal) 

We invite you to reflect on the past week:  
Recall what brought you joy? Give thanks.  
Recall what caused you fear, anxiety or trouble?  Ask the Lord to give you relief and protection from these things and feelings in the coming week.  
 
Think about our community of Cranbrook, or people you know elsewhere that fall in these categories:
- health care workers, and front line people, people who have lost jobs, people who are in need of immediate assistance  in our community
- Pray that the COVID virus would be stopped
- Pray for wisdom for our governments and doctors.

To close this prayer time read through Psalm 143 below.  You might want to imagine how this prayer is prayed in light of facing the COVID virus, as individuals and as people in general. (Such as inserting the word "VIRUS" or all the negative things associated with the VIRUS, for "enemies/foes/trouble")
​Psalm 143
1 Lord, hear my prayer,
    listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
    come to my relief.
2 Do not bring your servant into judgment,
    for no one living is righteous before you.
3 The enemy pursues me,
    he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
    like those long dead.
4 So my spirit grows faint within me;
    my heart within me is dismayed.
5 I remember the days of long ago;
    I meditate on all your works
    and consider what your hands have done.
6 I spread out my hands to you;
    I thirst for you like a parched land.
 7 Answer me quickly, Lord;
    my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
    or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
    for to you I entrust my life.
9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
    for I hide myself in you.
10 Teach me to do your will,
    for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
    lead me on level ground.
 11 For your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life;
    in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
12 In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
    destroy all my foes,
    for I am your servant.

10,000 Reasons

My All In Thee

We've mixed things up a bit this week by putting our message together into two parts. ​
The first is an audio portion. You can have a listen to that here:

Then read this scripture from Acts 17: 16-29

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.

Then watch as Kevin and Aaron discuss this scripture.

And gather round for our final song:

Lord I Need You

Thank you for joining us this morning! A special thank-you to Nancy Dyck for recording piano for "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" as well as Alison Kidd for singing. Thank you to Cory Greidanus for joining me on bass, and to Tim Matwey for lending out his camera!

​

Go out into the world (or stay in your home) in peace. Be brave; keep hold of what is good; never pay back wrong, encourage the faint-hearted; support the weak and the distressed; give due honour to everyone. Be always joyful; pray continually give thanks whatever happens, for this is what God in Christ wills for you. Amen. ​