Welcome to Grace at Home. Below are worship resources to sustain and strengthen our faith. Click on the pictures below to access the video content. Scriptures and prayers are located below the links. Due to COVID-19 positivity rates, Grace Community Christian Church will continue to share in worship online.

The building will re-open for in person worship on February 21. As guidelines change and vaccine is made available, we are hopeful and look forward to gathering again in person with COVID mitigation measures in place.

Additional opportunities for connection and reflection
You are also invited to join us this afternoon at 4pm to study Naked Spirituality on zoom. Click here. Lent is a 40 day season of prayer and preparation for Easter, not counting Sundays or Holy Saturday. It begins on Ash Wednesday, February 17, and ends on Good Friday, April 2. Below you will find a devotional resource for reflection and prayer during this season.
Inspiring video - "Love in Abundance"

"Today is the Day"
(Opening song - sing along)

Children, Worship, and Wonder

"Surrounded (Fight My Battles)"
(Song of reflection)
"Disciples of Christ"
(Video about identity and community)

"Heaven by a Whirlwind"
Rev. Yvonne Gilmore
(Communion and sermon)
"The world of the generous gets larger and larger"
--- Proverbs 11:24 (The Message) 

Thank you for sharing your gifts, tithes, and offerings with Grace Community Christian Church. You may give online below or mail in a check.

Each year in February, congregations across the United States and Canada collect a special offering for Week of Compassion. Funds received through the offering allow the Church to respond to disaster when it occurs. Please prayerfully consider making a gift to Week of Compassion over and above your regular tithes and offering in February.

The Transfiguration
Peter, James and John were with Jesus high on a mountain top (believed to be the place closer to God) when Jesus was joined by the long-dead Moses and Elijah (transmitter of the Law, and one of the major prophets). Peter, even though he was terrified by this visitation, WANTED to give something special to Jesus. His offer was to create tents/dwellings.

As followers of Jesus, we want to give something special to Jesus, as well. What can we give?
We can take the symbols of our lives – portions of the income we have (from our allowance, our work, our inheritance, Social Security or pension…), and offer those symbols to support our outreach through our mini food pantry; our outreach to young adults and families in the Unified Choir; and our commitment to growing in grace in 2021. Our returning a portion through the life of this congregation is one way we, too, are transfigured!

Offering prayer
God of all good gifts, we could remember the giants of the past, or serve the little ones of today; we could build grand facilities, or restore neighbors; we could stay on mountaintops, or go into the valleys of loneliness with our arms full of grace. May our lives and gifts we offer today be used to increase your work of light, community, and hope, we pray. Amen.
Click here to give online give using Paypal or your credit card
Opening Prayer

Before we pray,
I invite you to open your hands (as tho’ you’re ready to receive a gift),
open your ears (as tho’ you’re eager to hear God’s word),
open your lungs (breathe in, hold, and then breathe out, 3 times.)

Let us pray: God, we’ve gathered. 
We’re listening. We’re eager for you
to transform US by your presence in our midst.
Open us to your way of touching us,
as we actively WAIT for your word. (silence…)
Grateful for YOU and your shining light luring us on. Amen.


A Winter Prayer

God of creation, thank you for the beauty of winter- for snow, icy window panes, evergreen trees, warm coats, sledding, and hot cocoa. The darkness of winter has also been our companion, Lord. The days are shortening. Bring your light to us and to those without the comfort of shelter, that we might see your glory and may work for you.

Help us look at Jesus with new eyes, that transcend the icy conditions of the world, those eyes that see Jesus as the One who comes to set people free, to heal, to bring hope and peace. 

God of the blazing chariots, the whirling wind, the sacred silence, Listen softly to the confessions and hopes of our hearts.
[silence]

Create clean hearts in us.
Renew right spirits within us.
Shelter us within your presence.
Sustain us by your Holy Spirit.
Restore to us the joy of our salvation.
Blazing, whirling, sacred God,
inhabit and transform our stories. Amen.
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Lent 2021
Click here to read Go To Jerusalem, our Lenten devotional for 2021.
Scripture
2 Kings 2: 1 - 12
 Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord
lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. 3 The company of prophets[a] 
who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.” 4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. 5 The company of prophets[b] 
who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.” 6 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. 7 Fifty men of the company of prophets[c] also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” 10 He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” 11 As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. 
12 Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Grace Community Christian Church
2770 Montgomery Road
Aurora, IL 60504
www.graceccc.org
630.898.7990