COMMISSIONING SERVICE

VIM Team Members, Sunday, January 2, 2005

Nichols Hills United Methodist Church is a faith forming community for all ages. We seek to act out Christ's Mission in Christ's ways. Christian worship is the empowering center of our mission. Preaching is Bible centered.

Worship is the center of our communal life at NHUMC. It is from the worship of God that we we go forth into the world to enact and live out God's Kingdom on Earth. Mission work or Christian Service is a way to live out our baptismal covenant.

An Order for Commitment & Commissioning to Christian Service As Volunteers in Mission

Pastor: Dear friends, today we recognize, celebrate, and bless those from among us who go as Volunteers in Mission to God's people in Kenya. Today we would consecrate them and their expressions of God's love in a specialized service of Jesus Christ.

Congregation: We commend you to this work and pledge to you our prayers, encouragement, and support. May the Holy Spirit guide and strengthen you, that in this and in all things you may do God's will in the service of Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Let us all reaffirm our consecration to Christian ministry as declared in our baptism.

People: We give thanks for all that God has already given us. As members of the body of Christ and in this congregation of The United Methodist Church, we will faithfully participate I the ministries of the Church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service, that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Almighty God, look with favor upon these persons who commit themselves to serve in the name of Christ. Give each of them courage, patience, and vision; and strengthen us all in our Christian vocation of witness to the world and of service to others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.