Welcome to Grace at Home.
Thank you for joining us. We invite you to unplug in this moment from daily life: from display screens and sales, from overload, work, and isolation. Reconnect to visions and dreams: experience the grace of God moving within you, and among this community of faith.
Click on the pictures below to access the inspiring educational videos. Scriptures, prayers, and announcements are located beneath the links. Click here to watch the livestreamed service.
|
|
 |
"He Gets Us: AI Love:"
(Inspiring video)
|
|
|
|
"I Will Follow You"
(Opening song)
|
|
|
|
|
"I Will Follow"
Kids Praise Choir (dance)"
(Children's Moment)
|
|
|
|
"Acapella Amazing Grace Jam"
(Song of reflection)
|
|
|
|
|
Imagine more...more love...more grace
Learn more about our community of faith
|
|
|
|
"The Human Side of Jesus"
10am central live at Grace
Sermon by Joseph Thomas
|
|
|
|
Gifts of generosity and grace
You may give gifts, tithes, and offerings online below or mail in a check to Grace Community Christian Church.
Thank you for making space for Grace and Joy to be shared within and beyond our walls this season. Your faithful tithes and offerings make a life changing difference.
Special Offering
Week of Compassion is the relief, refugee, and sustainable development mission fund of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada. For nearly 80 years, Week of Compassion has pursued its mission, working with partners to alleviate suffering throughout the world, with a vision of a world where God’s people transform suffering into hope.
Hope and transformation, alleviation and relief— things that have been sorely lacking in our nations and world these last few years. Our neighbors and our churches still carry the fatigue of a global pandemic, international conflicts and a global climate crisis seem too huge to grasp and leave us feeling helpless, while local communities sag under the strain of bitter politics, pervasive violence, and economic challenge.
In the midst of all this? Week of Compassion says ‘RISE UP ANEW’?! HOW?! As people of faith, as followers on the Way, who proclaim the centrality of a welcome table and the power of an empty tomb, yes, somehow we still say ‘Rise Up Anew’. We're invited to make a special gift over and above our tithes and offerings to support Week of Compassion today.
_____________________________
We are a part of something BIGGER...We are a part of God's movement for wholeness as faithful stewards of God's limitless love.
Over the years, this season of Lent has been a time for people of faith to focus on prayer, fasting and giving to the poor (“almsgiving”).
As we turn our attention to the offering, consider how you might use this moment to enhance your participation. I’m reminded of a congregation where each person was invited to offer one usable item from their home each day of Lent, bringing things to church on Sunday which then became part of what was available in the church’s Thrift Store. One young boy voluntarily announced he was going to bring in his still good, but out-grown, clothes, shoes and toys.
What might you do for today, and the remaining weeks of Lent?
May your spirit be encouraged as you act out your desire to share, offering gifts which will make a difference in the lives of others. Let us receive our morning offering of tithes and gifts.
Offering prayer
With grateful hearts, O God, we offer these gifts as signs and symbols of our identity as your beloved daughters and sons. Please receive them, help us use them wisely, so these gifts allow us to share your love more widely within this congregation, within our community, and to the ends of the earth. Amen
|
|
Click here to give online using Paypal or your credit card
|
|
Opening Prayer
Gracious God, on this second Sunday of Lent, we turn to you, filled with gratitude for the ways you stand with us, and stand FOR us.
So open our minds, our hearts and our spirits in this hour, that we may be filled with your presence and strengthened to follow the Way of Jesus. Hold us together in your love, even as we face the challenges of these days. Amen
|
Prayers of the People
With all the challenges of life, we turn to the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Facing heat? The Lord is our shade.
Facing evil? The Lord will keep your life.
Facing loneliness? The Lord will keep you company.
Jesus of the temptations, you enter the wilderness of our hungers, our lust for power,
our eagerness to test God: be with us on our journey to Jerusalem, we pray.
Jesus of hopes, you set aside your glory,
choosing to cradle us in your scarred hands:
hold us in your tender embrace, we pray.
Jesus of the Feast, you are broken so we might be healed, you pour our your self so we might be drenched in your grace: feed us from the simple gifts of creation, we pray.
|
|
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” 21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
|
|
|
|
|
Lenten devotional
The season of Lent offers opportunities for Christians to strengthen our spiritual lives, consider how to go deeper, and how to acknowledge our awareness of the ways we fall short in our efforts to follow Jesus. The Lenten devotional, For the Beauty of the Earth by Leah Schade, can be picked up on the welcome table. An electronic version is not available at this time. Please let us know if we can send you one in the mail by contacting the church office or feel free to purchase it from Chalice Press.
|
|
|
|
Church Narrative Project
You are invited to join the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin, the Christian Church in Michigan, and Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, the General Minister and President, and Rev. Yvonne Gilmore, Grace Pastor and Interim Associate General Minister, on March 10-11, at United Christian Church in Country Club Hills, IL, for a regionwide StoryHour and Transformative Community Conference. Come experience a process that shifts our whole church into the future.
|
|
Grace Community Christian Church
2770 Montgomery Road
Aurora, IL 60504
www.graceccc.org
630.898.7990
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
