Prayer Before Worship  Dear living Lord Jesus, doubts torment us sometimes.  Here as I worship, my Faith seems so real, so believable and true.  Then, when I go back into my day-to-day life, my confidence withers, old misgivings return, and I am full of doubt.  Come to us, resurrected and living Lord Jesus.  Bring to us a sure and lasting faith in Your power and Your presence.  Make our lives to be the sort of witnesses where others might see the truth of Easter in the way we live in the world.  Amen.

IN TODAY’S WORSHIP   WHY does the world around us and the life we live not look anything like the reality Jesus talked about?  Why is there no significant difference between the lives of those who call themselves Christians and the rest of the world?  What kind of witness can we be in this world if we simply look the same as everybody else?  The solution is simple:  Take Jesus words – the ones that are written in red letters in your Bibles – and put them into practice.  Literally.  That’s the very unoriginal yet revolutionary idea that’s going to change not just the followers of Jesus, but the world in which we live!  Today we begin a six-week series, “The Red Letter Challenge.”  What you discover in these 40 days will lay the foundation for our Fall 2023 all-church small group focus “The Being Challenge.”