Welcome to Grace at Home. Below are worship resources to sustain and strengthen our faith. Click on the pictures below to access the video content. Scriptures and prayers are located below the links. Due to COVID-19 positivity rates, Grace Community Christian Church will continue to share in worship online.

The building is open for in person worship this morning. As guidelines change and vaccine is made available, we look forward to gathering safely again in person with COVID mitigation measures in place.

Additional opportunities for connection and reflection
We will gather to study chapter 10 and 11 of Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words by Brian D. McLaren on ZOOM on Sunday, May 2, after church at 11:15am in person (for persons that are comfortable with being present, masked, and appropriately distanced).
"Welcome to Our Church"
Inspiring video
"Disciples of Christ"
(Video about identity and community)
"Growing"
Inspiring video
"Let It Rise"
(Opening song - sing along)

"Vine and Branches"
(Children's moment)
"Draw Me Close to You"
(Song of reflection)

"Who is one stranger that you still remember?"
"Abiding and Unbound: Love
during the time of COVID 19"
Rev. Yvonne Gilmore
(sermon)
You may give gifts, tithes, and offerings online below or mail in a check to Grace Community Christian Church. Thank you in advance.

---------------------------------------------------Any serious gardener recognizes it is sometimes imperative to prune puny branches from plants.  
Cutting them off makes possible the abundant growth of branches which are growing. Jesus teaches this truth, reminding us how God “cleanses” or “prunes” each branch.  Once pruned, Jesus encourages his followers to “abide” in him as healthy branches “abide” in the vine. It’s only by abiding we are vitally connected to Christ.  That connection is what allows us to produce fruit.  Just as fully connected grape branches produce grapes, so fully connected Christians produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  (Galatians 5, fruit of the Spirit). How will you offer your fruitfulness today?  This week?  


Offering prayer
We give you thanks, God of mercy, for the ways you work to prune our lives, and enable us to be abundantly fruitful. Forgive us when we pull away, believing we can operate better without connection. As we continue to be COVID cautious, renew in us the energy and desire to find creative ways to share our gifts (our fruit) with others you have created in your image. With grateful hearts, we offer these gifts and our intention to live fruitfully. Amen
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Opening Prayer

Holy God, blessed Vinegrower, plant us in the soil of your grace. As disciples, we are pruned branches, connected to the true vine, Jesus. While we worship you, teach us how best to stay connected to your spirit today. Help us stay vitally linked, that we might be productive and flourish, now and in the coming week. Help us bear fruit in a world of doubt as we walk in your ways. Amen
Prayer to the Vine

Christ is the vine, Lord; make us the branches. The vine emerges from the earth, nourished and nourishing. Rises without visible connection; roots hidden, promise unknown. Strong to withstand storms, fragile when plucked too soon.

So it is that we grow… nourished by invisible connections to the living God, called to nourish that which is seen and that which is yet buried within.

Forgive us for neglecting to draw deeply on the sap of Life, for our tendency to wander instead of growing on the ground your provide; for being content, and sometimes even proud of, a few sparse or undersized fruits; for the apathy which lets us to go through some seasons without bearing any fruit.

We offer you our lives as we worship and pray the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven...

...press us into the wine of the new covenant, that the cup of the new kingdom may be filled to overflowing. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Scripture
John 15: 1-8
(The Message version)
15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
Grace Community Christian Church
2770 Montgomery Road
Aurora, IL 60504
www.graceccc.org
630.898.7990