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New every morning is your love, great God of light, and all day long you are working for good in the world. Stir up in us desire to serve you, to live peacefully with our neighbors and all your creation, and to devote each day to your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

"A Liturgy for Morning Prayer," Upper Room Worshipbook

Used by permission from the Book of Common Worship, © 2018 Westminster John Knox Press. All rights reserved. This prayer appears in “A Liturgy for Morning Prayer” in Upper Room Worshipbook.

 

Today’s Reflection

Your group may benefit from identifying two or three values that will guide and focus your work and then defining how you know when your group study and discussion are being guided by those values and how you know when you have strayed from them. Maybe your group decides that faith, hope, and love will be your underlying values. Or maybe you will embrace service, scripture, and stability. Whatever your values, be sure they are simple and clear. Take time to decide together, using behavioral terms, how you will know when you are living by your group’s values in your meetings and how you will know when your values have been compromised.

—Angela D. Schaffner, Gather Us In: Leading Transformational Small Groups (Upper Room Books, 2020)

Today’s Question

How do you keep track of whether you are living by your values? Join the conversation.

Today’s Scripture

But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.
—James 1:22-24 (NRSV)

Prayer for the Week

Abba,
You have given me life.
You have filled me with your Spirit.
I am your child, not a slave to fear.
I am your child; light my path and guide my steps.
I am your child; hold me.
Hold me tight.
Amen.

(Adapted from Romans 8.)
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Lectionary Readings

(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

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2 Comments

  • Lou Posted June 18, 2021 5:24 am

    I don’t know if I “keep track” – I just know that everyday I wake up and try to keep God at my center. Some days I do better than others.
    Thankful for wonderful visits with my children in late may and early June. Now I have had a string of old friends wanting to visit as restrictions are lifted and the world seems to be coming back to life. I value these friends from my past and am thankful for good friendships and the reconnections and reunions we are having. Thankful that my kids are doing ok despite bumps in the road along the way. Thankful for outdoor services at my church that have started and the reconnections that I feel there. Thankful for connections in my job and the opportunity to help others. Thankful for the rain that woke me
    early and the tasks of the day ahead. Thankful for this place to share. May you all have a blessed day.

  • robert moeller Posted June 18, 2021 6:00 am

    “Take time to decide together, using behavioral terms, how you will know when you are living by your group’s values in your meetings and how you will know when your values have been compromised.” Certainly this is great advice. Not sure it has been done by those who post here or by the church groups or committees I am in or on.
    A delight to fin Lou’s post before mine and learn how reconnections are going. You share very positive, welcome news, Lou. May these reconnections continue and flourish.
    Breakfast with the pastor this morning today and again next Friday with our current pastor, She mentions time being fleeting as her ministry with Center Conway UMC comes to an end. I’ve only experienced one other so deeply emotional pastoral change. It is very etched in my memory.
    Hope you saw my late yesterday post after I searched through several days of comments here at NEM. A lovely morning here in the Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire.
    Prayers for safety, healing, restoration, mental. spiritual, physical, and emotional health, well-being, sustenance, and God’s peace to everyone. Thank You, Lord

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