Welcome & Call to Worship

Welcome to Broadway. If you are a visitor, we are especially glad you are here. You are our honored guest. Please take note of the card holders attached to the song book racks. We want all Broadway members to take one of the white cards to fill out. Guests, please take one of the lavender colored cards and fill it out. We will be calling for those cards at the conclusion of our worship assembly. Also in those card holders, you will find some green forms. These are our shepherds’ prayer request forms. If you have anything you would like to have our elders pray about, please use these forms to make that prayer request known. You can get these forms to our elders by placing them in the collection plate, by handing them to one of the elders, or by putting them through the slot in the elders’ office door; that door is found just across from the atrium in the southeast portion of our building.

I think all of us know that the news for our local farmers is not good. Prices are low, and we are still dry. Yesterday’s Lubbock paper had this note,

Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs warned Friday that the spring planting season may bring too little rain to benefit Texas farmers.

"The likelihood for a very dry spring is high," said Ms. Combs, a fourth generation farmer.

Yesterday’s Dallas Morning News contained extensive coverage concerning the plight of farmers in west Texas. That coverage began on the front page of that paper and went on to take in a major percentage of two additional pages in the A section. Again the prognosis was not very optimistic.

We come this morning to pray for our farmers, to pray for the farming industry as a whole. But we want to pray to God with hearts very aware of the multitude of blessings which God has bestowed upon us. We have had so much for so long at the same time that so many in our world have been so poor. So we will begin our service with praise and worship and gratitude, because God has blessed us well beyond what we deserve.

Then we will move into a time of reflection, prayer, and penitent entry into the holy presence of God. During this time of reflection we will partake together of the Lord’s Supper. Then we will prepare our minds to pray exclusively for our farmers and the farming industry. In fact, three of our farmers will lead these special prayers. After these prayers, I will have a few concluding comments regarding our need to keep praying for our farmers during the weeks and months ahead.

But right now, let’s sing. Let’s sing songs of praise to our God for all that He has given, for all that He has done, and for all that He is. Let’s worship. Adam, come lead us.

The Holy Presence of God

[Begin with a prayer asking God to draw us now into His holy presence and to work within us to prepare us to commune and to pray].

Have you ever stopped to think how incredible it is that we can come into the presence of God Almighty. The writer of Hebrews in Heb 4:16 says, "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." This is the same God whose presence is so holy and so dangerous that when that holy presence descended upon Mount Sinai God warned that anyone who even touched that mountain would die. This is the same God whose presence is so holy that even to look upon the uncovered items housed in the tabernacle meant death. This is the same God whose presence is so holy that a man named Uzzah died when he grabbed hold of the ark of the Covenant where God was enthroned.

By the blood of Jesus Christ we are able to approach with boldness the throne of grace where God is seated. But we must not treat that gift of access in a flippant way. We must enter with contrite hearts, with humility, and with the desire to be purified by God’s active and righteous grace.

In 2 Chr 7:13-14 the Lord says to King Solomon,

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

We want to come before God as a group of His people to pray for the farmers of our region. And we want to be extremely serious about this. We want our hearts to be prepared for the important task before us. We want to begin by humbling ourselves before God. And we want to ask God to help us see and turn away from wickedness. In Ps 139:23-24 we find the words which I want to ring in our ears as we are being prepared to pray. Those verses say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Adam is going to come now and lead us in three songs. These are reflection songs, and as we sing them we want everyone to ask God to search and test and to lead us "in the way everlasting." This time of reflection is designed to draw us into God’s presence, to be focused upon Him and cleansed by Him and be made aware by Him of any wickedness within us. This is the most important part of our service this morning. We are being prepared to speak to our God on behalf of those whose lives are inextricably joined to God’s land.

This time of reflection will also serve as a time when anyone can come forward to have an elder pray with you and for you. During our invitation time we normally have two elders up here to assist any who come to the front. This morning we will have five elders at each one of our aisles. If you want to be baptized, this is the time to come forward. If you have a special joy which you want an elder to thank God for, this is the time to come forward. If you are struggling with some sin, some hurt, some illness, some evil desire, or anything at all please come to the front during the singing of these three songs and one of these elders will pray with you. If we do not have enough elders for all who want prayer, we will grab additional elders or staff. Please do not let anything deter you from this special opportunity.

But all of us, whether we come to the front or not, will be praying before God’s throne of grace. We will all be seeking to be drawn into His holy presence. We will all be seeking to humble ourselves before God, to be tested and purified and consecrated because we have a very special task to perform. We are representing thousands of people before the God of the universe.

After the three songs, please keep praying for a time, and when the Spirit gives Adam a nudge he will move us into the partaking together of the Lord’s Supper. Would our five appointed elders come forward now and stand one each at the five aisles? Let’s come into the holy presence of our God. Adam, please lead us in song.

Dear Lord, Please Bless Your Land

From the time I was one year old until I was seventeen I grew up in two different residential neighborhoods in northwest Alabama. So I was not a farm boy. But my Dad preached for Gospel Meetings in countless farming communities in our area and beyond. And I loved the country. In fact, my best friend from the fourth grade through the sixth grade was a farm boy, and I loved to spend a weekend at his house. His Dad worked at a local industrial plant, but their house was on farm land which they both owned and farmed. They grew some crops, and they also raised cattle and hogs, and sometimes they also raised goats. They had a horse and a mule, and they had a freezing cold creek that we would sneak off to swim in. I so delighted in farm life that when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would invariably say, "a preacher and a farmer." My wife and children should be extremely grateful that I stuck with the first and grew out of the second. I may not be a great preacher, but I would have been a pathetic farmer.

However, I still feel a special love for the farming life. I still love to see cotton and grain and cattle and horses. I still love to look out across a field and see a tractor working land or a farmer feeding stock. That way of life is precious, and that way of life has blessed and blesses us all––especially here in west Texas.

That way of life is being challenged by great forces bigger than anyone of us, bigger than all of us together; but these great forces God easily can address. That is why we have prepared ourselves to address God in prayer on behalf of our farmers. It is because we need God to address the weather issues, to address the market issues, to address all of the issues which will be the difference between success and failure for our farmers.

My affection for Lubbock, TX grows deeper every year, but I know that one of the things that makes Lubbock so special is the farming industry. Farming is not only the main economic force for our city, it is also the main cultural force for our city. Farming gives even to Lubbock’s town folk a sense of connection to God’s land. It keeps us from forgetting our need for the right balance and the right timing of rain and sunshine. To live in Lubbock is to be unable to forget that we need God to nurture His good earth. It can supply great bounty if God so wills it. But it can become desert if God simply withholds His rain and allows the sun to parch it. The best farming techniques will not prevail without divine cooperation. The best irrigation systems will not sustain crops if the aquifers run dry.

Brothers and sisters, we need God all of the time. And even though I hurt for our farmers, I think times like these can be extremely important for us, because these times keep us from forgetting our great need for God.

Bill Stence, Scott Mack, and Nelson Reinsch are three of our members who farm. They are going to lead us in prayers, one right after the other. Let’s join with them. Feel free to kneel. Let’s humble ourselves before God and pray that He will bless His land.

Lord, Please Give Broken Hearts New Dreams

I was talking to Bill Stence last week, and He told me that the concerns about the weather, the market, etc. are critical but are not as critical right now as is the concern about the spirit of our local farmers. He says that many of them are more down, more pessimistic than he has ever known them to be. I want to pray that God will heal the broken hearts of the farmers and give them new dreams, new dreams that God will make come true. Let’s pray. [Lead the prayer and then conclude your comments with what follows].

Please sisters and brothers, keep praying. Pray that God will make His land fruitful and sustain our farmers and the farming industry. Pray that God will heal the broken hearts of our hurting farmers. And let’s commit ourselves to giving God the glory for every positive answer to our prayers. And let’s all commit to bowing before God’s will whatever His will proves to be. Whatever His answer, we are to learn from it and to grow from it and to become more godly as a result of it.