[Last week, Pastor Robert and his wife, Penny visited their families. The church on the left is Penny’s home church, Wesley UMC in Nescopeck, PA. The other church is Stewartstown UMC in Stewartstown, PA which is Robert’s home church. They have been blessed with church families who loved them and helped them to grow in their faith. They are now blessed to be part of a loving church family here at Athens First UMC. In Sunday’s Old Testament scripture reading, King David wanted to build a Temple for God. It was eventually built by David’s son, Solomon. Click here for the sermon. We are presently asking our congregation to respond to three questions that will be used for a fall sermon series. One of those questions is, “what does your church mean to you?” That’s a great question! We would love to hear your responses and have them by the end of August. These questionnaires are available on the guest book podium in the Welcome Center and on the back table of the Chapel.]
How do we say thank you for your many blessings in our lives, O God? How do we say thank you for sending us Jesus to be our Lord and Savior and your Holy Spirit to be our guide and comforter? How do we say thank you when we are surprised by a bright vivid rainbow that catches us off guard, reminding us of your presence?
We say thank you by whispering a prayer to you in the middle of the day. We say thank you by singing a hymn during worship. We say thank you when we offer encouragement to someone who is feeling lonely. We say thank you by traveling to Honduras to build latrines, and outdoor sinks for laundry, and pouring concrete floors over dirt floors, and for spending time with children. We say thank you when we place a gift in the offering plate. And we say thank you when we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and world by having a loving faith, a learning faith, and a living faith. These are ways that we say thank you, O God for your many blessings in our lives.
Gracious and generous God, we pray for those who are in particular need of you this day; those who are grieving the loss of a loved one, those who are ill and concerned about their health, those who are struggling with addictions, those who are anxious about the future, those who feel separated from you.
In these moments of silence, we lift up to you others who are on our minds this day. We pray that you would surround them with your gracious presence and love… (Moments of Silence)
Gracious God, we often feel that we don’t have that much to offer to you because we are overwhelmed at just how much you have given and continue to give to us.
And so we thank you for accepting our spontaneous whispers of praise, our presence in worship, our weekly offerings, our gifts of time, and yes, even though it doesn’t sound like very much, we also offer up to you our bologna sandwiches.
We pray all of this in the name of Christ who gave his all and who taught us to pray saying… “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
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