Personal Worship (Page 23)
For the week of April 18th
Prepare for Worship (weekend of April 16th)
Dear Rio Family, We hope that you have been experiencing a blessed Holy Week and you’ve had opportunity to attend our Holy Week services. As you prepare your hearts for Resurrection Sunday tomorrow, we encourage you to participate in the Holy Saturday Vigil tonight. If you are able, we invite you to come to the worship center and do so. (A note about that. The…
For the week of April 11th
View Previous Weeks Welcome to Holy Week. We hope your Palm Sunday was joyous and you were able to come celebrate it with us. If you are a listener of our Out of Water podcast, let me invite you this week to go back in time a bit and listen to episodes 45 through 48, a four-part series called “A Guided Tour of Holy Week.” Recorded in April of 2020, it examines the events…
Prepare for Worship (weekend of April 9th)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Beginning this weekend, your Prepare for Worship newsletter will be delivered on Saturdays, around 4 PM (or so we intend). Historically, that is when it was delivered, but during the time we had a Saturday evening service, the newsletter moved to Friday. Since that service no longer is held, we’re moving back to Saturdays. Thanks! Hey Church! In…
For the week of April 4th
View Previous Weeks Your study notes and prayer guides this week are authored by Will Buschmann, Director of Student Ministries. Welcome to a new week! We are leaving parables behind (kinda) and we begin preparing our hearts and lives for Easter. We have already begun our preparation through the season of Lent and this week we look to Palm Sunday, which marks the…
Prepare for Worship (weekend of April 1st)
Hey Church! As you make your plans for the weekend, I want to encourage you once again to carve out adequate space on Saturday night and Sunday morning to prepare your hearts and minds for worship. It’s so easy to slip into the habit of simply “showing up” to church, like a work meeting that was scheduled weeks ago but still somehow caught you by…
For the week of March 28th
Prepare for Worship (weekend of March 25th)
Hey Church! I had a group of friends in college who, at some point in their faith journey, had become disillusioned with the institutional church and decided to form their own “house church.” On Sundays, they would have a potluck meal, sing along with selections from a worship-music CD collection, and have a good old-fashioned Bible study, free of all the…
For the week of March 21st
Prepare for Worship (weekend of March 18th)
Hey Church! When Solomon’s Temple was destroyed and the people of Israel were exiled to Babylon in 586 BCE, faithful Jews began to gather together in worship-houses called synagogues (literally “assembly”). Since it was against the Law to offer sacrifices on foreign soil, and without the proper and necessary provisions of the Temple (altars, veils, priests, etc.),…