Your Worship Invitation from Pastor Jon

Friends,

I want to offer you a warm invitation to worship this Sunday at St. John’s. The Scriptures we’re sitting with remind us that God is not playing hide and seek with us. Jesus says ask, seek, knock. Jeremiah promises a future with hope. Put those two together and you get a picture of a God who is already leaning toward us before we even speak a word.

Some weeks we come in strong. Other weeks we arrive with questions hanging off us like loose threads. Either way, this service is built around the truth that we don’t have to earn God’s attention. We simply have to turn toward the One who is already listening.

We’ll sing the gratitude of Now Thank We All Our God, pray honestly about the places where we’ve tried to do life on our own, and hear again that our hope rests in a Father who loves to give good gifts. The choir has a beautiful anthem prepared, and we’ll finish with that sturdy old promise from Hymn 816 that trust really does hold us steady.

If you’re carrying something heavy or seeking a fresh word for the week ahead, join us at 11 AM. Come as you are. Come with your questions. Come with your joys. Come with whatever you’ve got. God meets us there, and we’ll be glad to welcome you.

Can't make it this Sunday? We livestream our worship services. Visit our website for the link, or better yet, plan to visit in person soon. There's something about worshiping together in the same room that you just can't replicate online.

Peace,
Pastor Jon Burnham

P.S. The service will be live-streamed

on our church website

and on our St. John's Facebook page.

St. John's Presbyterian Church in Southwest Houston

Worship Bulletin

St. John's Presbyterian Bulletin

November 16, 2024,

23rd Sunday after Pentecost 

Gathering

Prelude, Alina Klimaszewska, organ

*Call To Worship, The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham

Pastor: Ask and it will be given to you!

People: Seek and you will find!

Pastor: Knock and the door will be opened!

People: For the Lord has plans to prosper us and not to harm us.

Pastor: Plans to give us hope and a future.

People: We are blessed to bless; we receive to give.

Opening Prayer 

*Hymn 643

Now Thank We All Our God

1 Now thank we all our God

with heart and hands and voices,

who wondrous things hath done,

in whom this world rejoices;

who, from our mothers' arms,

hath blessed us on our way

with countless gifts of love,

and still is ours today.

2 O may this bounteous God

through all our life be near us,

with ever joyful hearts

and blessed peace to cheer us;

and keep us in God's grace,

and guide us when perplexed,

and free us from all ills

in this world and the next.

3 All praise and thanks to God,

who reigns in highest heaven,

to Father and to Son

and Spirit now be given:

the one eternal God,

whom heaven and earth adore,

the God who was, and is,

and shall be evermore.

Prayer of Confession, Liturgist Leonie Tchoconte 

Lord who gives good gifts,

we confess we have not asked, sought, or knocked. 

We have relied on our own strength,

trusted our own wisdom, followed our own plans. 

We have treated prayer as an emergency option

rather than daily bread. 

Forgive our independence, our lack of trust,

our failure to seek You first. 

Teach us to pray with confidence in Your goodness. Amen. (Silent Confession)

Assurance of Pardon 

*Glory Be to the Father, Hymn 581

*Passing the Peace 

Children’s Time, Lindsey Sen-Roy

The Word

Prayer for Illumination 

First Scripture Reading,

Jeremiah 29:11-14

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Anthem

Sermon Scripture,

Matthew 7:7-11

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 

For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!.”

The Word of the Lord for us today.

Thanks be to God. 

Sermon, Ask, Seek, Knock:

Stewardship of Prayer and Trust

The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham

*Hymn 817 We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight

1 We walk by faith and not by sight;

with gracious words draw near,

O Christ, who spoke as none e'er spoke:

“My peace be with you here.”

2 We may not touch your hands and side,

nor follow where you trod;

but in your promise we rejoice,

and cry, "My Lord and God!"

3 Help then, O Lord, our unbelief;

and may our faith abound

to call on you when you are near

and seek where you are found.

4 And when our life of faith is done,

in realms of clearer light

may we behold you as you are,

with full and endless sight.

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Prayers of the People

Lord’s Prayer 

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Welcome and Announcements

Minute for Stewardship

Offering

*Doxology, Hymn 609

*Prayer after the Offering 

Sending

*Hymn 816

If Thou but Trust in God to Guide Thee

1 If thou but trust in God to guide thee,

with hopeful heart through all thy ways,

God will give strength, whate'er betide thee,

to bear thee through the evil days.

Who trusts in God's unchanging love

builds on the rock that nought can move.

2 Only be still, and wait God's leisure

in cheerful hope, with heart content

to take whate'er thy Keeper's pleasure

and all-discerning love hath sent.

No doubt our inmost wants are clear

to One who holds us always dear.

3 Sing, pray, and swerve not from God's ways,

but do thine own part faithfully.

Trust the rich promises of grace;

so shall they be fulfilled in thee.

God never yet forsook at need

the soul secured by trust indeed.

*Blessing and Postlude

Beyond Worship:

Resources for Your Journey

If you're wrestling with the questions raised in this article about finding authentic Christian community, I've written several books that explore these themes more deeply.

The Open Church: Faith that Welcomes Questions addresses exactly what many church shoppers are looking for but rarely find: a community where honest questions and real struggles are welcomed rather than seen as threats to faith. This book challenges the superficial Christianity that treats doubt as weakness and explores what it means to build churches where authenticity matters more than appearance. If you're tired of churches that demand certainty you don't feel, this book offers a different way forward.

For those seeking to develop the kind of deep, substantive faith that can't be found through church shopping alone, Stewardship: Faithful, Fruitful, and Flourishing explores what it actually means to live as a disciple rather than a religious consumer. The book connects spiritual formation to practical living in ways that reveal why authentic community requires more than just showing up on Sundays. And Living the Lord's Prayer: A Group Study and Daily Devotional provides exactly the kind of deeper biblical engagement that church shoppers say they want but rarely find in contemporary church settings.

These resources aren't substitutes for finding real community. But they can help you think more clearly about what you're actually searching for and why the consumer approach to church fails so many people. Real faith requires depth, and depth requires the kind of patient study and reflection that our fast-paced church shopping culture often skips right past.