Our Father, who from heav'n above bids all of us to live in love
As members of one family and pray to You in unity,
Teach us no thoughtless words to say
but from our inmost hearts to pray.(Martin Luther, Lutheran Service Book #766, stanza 1)
This year, our Lenten focus will be on the prayer our Lord Jesus gave to us Christians, the Our Father. Please join us for weekly Vestpers and catechetical preaching on the prayer par exellance, God's Word of promise given us to pray to Him for our every need, spiritual and physical, temporal and eternal.
Martin Luther says of the Our Father in his Large Catechism:
We should be more encouraged and moved to pray because God has also added a promise and declared that it shall surely be done for us as we pray. He says in Psalm 50:15, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.” And Christ says in the Gospel of St. Matthew, ‘Ask, and it will be given you; …for everyone who asks receives.’ such promises certainly ought to encourage and kindle our hearts to pray with pleasure and delight. For He testifies with His own Word that our prayer is heartily pleasing to Him….
Besides this, we should be moved and drawn to prayer. For in addition to this commandment and promise, God expects us and He Himself arranges the words and form of prayer for us. He places them on our lips for how and what we should pray, so that we may see how heartily He pities us in our distress, and we may never doubt that such prayer is pleasing to Him and shall certainly be answered. This [the Our Father] is a great advantage indeed over all other prayers that we might compose ourselves. For in our own prayers the conscience would ever be in doubt and say, ‘I have prayerd, but who knows if it pleases Him or whether I have hit upon the right proportions and form?’ Therefore, there is no nobler prayer to be found upon earth than the Our Father. We pray it daily, because it has this excellent testimony, that God loves to hear it. We ought not to surrender this for all the ridches of the world.(Luther, Large Catechism, 19–23)
Join us at 5:00 p.m. each Wednesday for a light fellowship supper before the services. Watch the bulletin for turther information.
Divine Service with Holy Communion
Vespers: Our Father, Who Art In Heaven
Vespers: Hallowed Be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done
Vespers: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread, And Forgive Us Our Trespasses…
Vespers: And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From Evil
Vespers: For Thine Is The Kingdom, And The Power, And The Glory…
Divine Service with Holy Communion
2:00 p.m. — Chief Service of Good Friday: Divine Service with Holy Communion
7:00 p.m. — Good Friday Tenebrae Vespers
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