Christ Memorial was a church plant of Salem Lutheran in Affton in 1948. Our history is God “sowing seeds” and “bearing fruit.” What will he grow in the next 75 years? Martin Luther once said, “Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today.” We continue to plant seeds for coming generations of gospel multiplication. More people loved in Christ, more people sent into the world.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5) O Lord, I am lowly and humble. You alone are my inheritance. Amen.
Word: Hebrews 11:8
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”
Meditation
Going by Faith by Susan Senechal
My grandpa was a man of great faith in a future he couldn’t see. At age 13 he sailed, alone, from his homeland in Germany to the US. (His mother must have been a woman of great faith as well, to send her youngest son a ship across the ocean, knowing she was unlikely to see him again.) He landed at Ellis Island, then boarded a train to Michigan to meet a brother he had never met. Eighteen years older, his brother had left Germany before my grandpa was born. Once he arrived in Michigan, my grandfather lived as a hired hand until he had saved enough money to buy a plot of land several miles away to begin his own farm.
My grandpa was a man of great faith. He bought a plot of land and planted seed, hoping and praying it would become plants and a crop he could sell to have enough money for the next planting and harvest. He bought a horse and a plow, and then met and courted the woman down the way, and they got married and established a farm and a family. They lived and raised their children to have faith in a God they could not see, but a God who they knew richly supplied all their needs, a God who kept him safe as he crossed an ocean, and supplied all his needs to begin a new life. There were lean years and fruitful years, and grandpa and his sons, and grandma and her daughters, worked hard to establish their life there in Michigan, all the while never forgetting that it wasn’t their hard work, but God, supplying all their needs.
And the children had children, and they were taught about this loving God who never lost sight of them during times of plenty and times of want, during good health and bad, during peace and times of war, during seasons of rain and seasons of drought.
My grandpa knew that all he could do was plant the seed and be faithful with what God provided. We live by that same faith. Though we aren’t farmers like my grandpa, we do go where God sends us, and we plant seeds of faith in our communities, in our workplaces, and in our families. We trust God when he is acting very visibly in our lives, and in times of drought we still see his provision for us. Our hope for the future comes from knowing the God who has watched over us and provided in the past, and so we continue to go and plant seeds.
O God, you are our help in ages past and our hope for years to come. Help us to follow where you lead, and to continue to till the soil and plant the seeds in the ground where you place us, and to trust in your provision for our future. Amen.
Prayer for Family
· For my immediate family (parents, spouse, siblings).
· For extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents)
· For close friends that are as family to me.
· For those who don’t have families, or whose families are broken.
· For forgiveness and reconciliation where there is division in my family.
· For provision where there is need in my family.
· For God to be the foundation, and the cross the center of my family.
· For a generation yet unborn, future members of our family.
Closing Prayer
O Lord and King, your Kingdom comes even without our prayer. But we pray that it would also come among us. We are desperate for your reign and rule, for all we see is rebellion. Come into my heart, my home, my family, my work, my church, my community. Rule with justice and with mercy. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.