Now and then, we’ll take a break from our Sunday Scholar’s Compass rhythm to share other material that can be used in personal reflection and communal worship, and this week we share a liturgy from a recent InterVarsity conference. Every summer, InterVarsity hosts the Midwest Faculty Conference as a time for faculty to rest, reflect, and meet with God and each other. This year’s theme was The Faculty Vocation: Exploring a Christian Anthropology of the Academic Life. Mike Gehrling, InterVarsity’s Director of International Graduate Student and Faculty Ministry, crafted liturgies for worship at the conference around the theme of vocation. He shares them with us here.
My Calling In Christ – a Liturgy based on Colossians 1:1-23
Song – In Christ Alone (Keith Getty and Stuart Townend)
Prayer of Thanksgiving
God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
we thank you for our faith in Christ Jesus.
We thank you for the love of all the saints.
We thank you for the hope laid up for us in heaven,
which we heard in the word of the truth of the gospel.
We thank you that the gospel has come to us,
even as it goes into all the world.
We thank you for the fruit Your gospel has been bearing in our lives,
from the day we first heard and knew Your grace and truth.
We thank you for those who have spoken the gospel to us . . .
(we name those whose witness led us to Jesus Christ).
Song – Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies (Charles Wesley)
Statement of Faith
Christ is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For by Him all things were created
that are in heaven and that are on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers.
All things were created through Him and for Him.
And He is before all things,
and in Him all things consist.
And He is the head of the body, the Church,
who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things
He may have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in Him
all the fullness should dwell,
and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
having made peace
through the blood of His cross.
Song – Center (Charlie Hall and Matt Redman)
Closing Prayer
O Lord,
fill us with the knowledge of Your will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
that we may walk worthy of You,
fully pleasing You,
being fruitful in every good work
and increasing in knowledge of You.
Strengthen us with all might,
according to Your glorious power,
for all patience and longsuffering with joy.
We thank You, Father,
for You have qualified us to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
You have delivered us from the power of darkness
and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of Your love.
In Christ we have redemption
through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins.
Amen.
Part of Mike Gehrling’s Liturgies of Calling series, appearing in the Highlighting Community feature of the Emerging Scholars Network Blog. Part 1. Find Part 2 here. Find Part 3 here.
Image courtesy of Unsplash at Pixabay.com.
Rev. Michael Gehrling is InterVarsity’s Director of International Graduate Student and Faculty Ministry, leading GFM’s ministry to international students and scholars across the country. He also serves as co-pastor of The Upper Room, a Presbyterian church plant in Pittsburgh, PA. Find him on social media @mikegehrling.
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